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ON THE THRESHOLD 

By THEODORE T. MUNGEK 

44 Many men that stumble at the threshold " 

REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
(Cbe fltoers'itie press Cambribge 



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ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



NOTE TO REVISED EDITION. 



It is proper to state that this revised edi- 
tion is not due to any change of opinion on 
the subjects treated, but to the exigencies of 
publication. The demand for the book has 
been so large and continuous that the plates 
have become unfit for further use. Advan- 
tage is taken of this necessity to make a 
thorough revision of the text, and to add 
another chapter which seemed to be called 
for by the plan of the book. 

The changes consist chiefly in the re- 
moval of local and temporary allusions, 
modifications of emphasis on some points, 
and occasional additions in the main line of 
thought. It is hoped that the new chapter 
— Number IX. — will commend itself to all 
as a fit treatment of a subject that could 



IV NOTE TO REVISED EDITION. 

hardly l>e passed by. At the Round Table 
of true knighthood the seat of Sir Galahad 
should not be left vacant. 

When this book was first published, the 
author had no anticipation of the large 
place it would fill in so many lives ; and he 
sends forth this new edition with feelings of 
profound gratitude for what it has been 
permitted to accomplish, and with the ear- 
nest hope that it may continue to guide and 
stimulate the young men of our country 
along the lines of true living and noble 
manhood. 
New Haven, October 23, 1891. 



PREFACE. 



The object of this little book is to put 
into clear form some of the main principles 
that enter into life as it is now opening be- 
fore young men in this country. Its sugges- 
tions are more specific and direct than if 
they had been addressed to older persons ; 
still, I have aimed to support every point 
by sound reasons, and to join the authority 
and inspiration of the greater minds with 
my own views. I think I may assure my 
readers that they will not encounter a sim- 
ple mass of advice, nor the generalities of an 
essay, but rather a series of hints suitable to 
the times, and pointing out paths that are 
just now somewhat obscured. If they find 
some pages that are strenuous in their sug- 
gestions, they will find none that are keyed 
to impossible standards of conduct, or filled 



2 PREFACE. 

with moralizings that are remote from the 
every-day business of life. 

It is not pleasant to play the role of 
Polonius, and I undertake it only because 
Laertes seems to be quite as much in need 
of advice as ever. I have not, however, 
written out of a critical mood, so much as 
from a desire to bring young men face to 
face with the inspiring influences which, in 
a peculiar degree, surround them. The 
country was never so prosperous, the future 
never so full of happy assurance, as it is 
to-day. To point out the way of reaping 
the double harvest of this prosperity and a 
noble manhood, is the motive that underlies 
these pages. 



CONTENTS. 



I. Purpose .... 
II. Friends and Companions 

III. Manners .... 

IV. Thrift . 

V. Self-Reliance and Courage 
VI. Health .... 
VTI. Reading .... 
VIII. Amusements 

IX. Purity 

X. Faith 



PAGE 
5 

33 
53 
77 
101 
123 
155 
183 
207 
227 



I 

PURPOSE. 



44 1 long hae thought, my youthfu' friend, 
A something to have sent you, 
Tho' it should serve nae ither end 

Then just a kind memento; 
But how the subject theme may gang, 

Let time and chance determine ; 
Perhaps, it may turn out a sang, 
Perhaps, turn out a sermon." 

Burns. 

" Sow an act, and you reap a habit ; sow a habit, and 
you reap a character ; sow a character, and you reap a 
destiny." — Anon. 

' ' So teach us to number our days that we may apply 
our hearts unto wisdom. ' ' — Psalm XC. 

" Youth is the only time 
To think and to decide on a great course ; 
Manhood with action follows ; but 't is dreary 
To have to alter our whole life in age — 
The time past, the strength gone." 

Browning. 

44 The secret of success is constancy to purpose." 

Beaconsfleld. 



PURPOSE. 

In entering upon this series of essays, or 
talks with young men, I wish to have it un- 
derstood at the outset that I do not under- 
take to cover or even touch the whole truth 
of the subject in hand. The philosophical 
basis and the religious application will not 
be much regarded ; hence, to some they may 
seem to lack profound thought, and to others 
moral earnestness ; but I shall not mind if 
I can lead my readers to think seriously of 
what I do say. If I speak the truth, it will 
have enough philosophy in it ; if it is care- 
fully heeded, it will of itself grow into the 
moral and religious. 

I begin with Purpose, because it naturally 
underlies the themes that are to follow, and 
also because it is a matter of special impor- 
tance. I say special, because I think that 
just now many young men are entering life 
without any very definite purpose ; as some 



8 PURPOSE. 

one has put it, " the world is full of purpose- 
less people." It may be due to the recur- 
ring phase of alternate prosperity and de- 
pression in our social life : when the times 
are prosperous we are not driven to a pur- 
pose ; when they are depressed, the openings 
are few and little freedom of choice is left. 
It is also due to the fact that, during the 
previous years, large and sudden accumula- 
tions of property were made by people not 
accustomed to its use. The consciousness of 
wealth is always dangerous. "When a young 
man comes to feel that because his father 
has wealth he has no need of personal exer- 
tion, he is doomed. Only the rarest natural 
gifts and the most exceptional training can 
save the sons of the rich from failure of the 
true ends of life. They may escape vice and 
attain to respectability, but for the most 
part they are hurt in some degree or respect. 
The possession of wealth in the latter part 
of life, after one has earned or become pre- 
pared for it, may be not only not injurious, 
but healthful, though one ought to be able 
to live a high and happy life without it. 
But anything which lessens in a young man 
the feeling that he is to make his own way 
in the world is hurtful to the last degree. 



PURPOSE. 9 

As the result of these two causes, — with 
others, doubtless, — young men of the pres- 
ent years, as a class, are not facing life with 
that resolute and definite purpose which is 
essential both to manhood and to external 
success. There is far less of this early 
measurement and laying hold of life with 
some definite intent than there was a gen- 
eration ago. Young men do not so much 
choose to go to college as suffer themselves 
to be sent. They do not push their way 
into callings, but allow themselves to be led 
into them. Indeed, the sacred word calling 
seems to have lost its meaning ; they hear 
no voice summoning them to the appointed 
field, but drift into this or that as happens. 
They appear to be waiting, to be floating 
with the current instead of rowing up the 
stream toward the hills where lie the trea- 
sures of life. I mean, of course, that this 
seems to be the drift, not that it is a delib- 
erate purpose. 

My object is to interrupt this tendency, 
— to induce you to aim at a far end rather 
than a near one ; to live under a purpose 
rather than under impulse ; to set aside the 
thought of enjoyment, and get to thinking of 
attainment ; to conceive of life as a race 
instead of a drift. 



10 riRPOSE. 

Men may be divided in many ways, but 
there is no clearer cut division than that 
between those who have a purpose and those 
who are without one. It is the character 
of the purpose that at last determines the 
character of the man, — for a purpose may 
be good or bad, high or low. It is the 
strength and definiteness of the purpose that 
determines the measure of success. 

It is one of the gracious features of our 
nature that we are capable of forming high 
and noble purposes. The mind overleaps 
its ignorance, and fixes upon what is wisest 
and best. A child is always planning noble 
things before its " life fades into the light of 
common day." There may not always be 
congruity in these early ambitions, but they 
are nearly always noble. A friend of mine 
set out in life with the complex purpose of 
becoming " a great man, a good man, and 
a stage-driver." He has not yet achieved 
greatness, and I doubt if he has ever held a 
four-in-hand or knows what tandem means, 
except in its Latin sense; but he has not 
failed in the other part, being a worthy 
clergyman presiding over a church with a 
dignity and wisdom which are the proper 
outcome of his early conceptions. The 



PURPOSE. 11 

weaker element naturally passed away, and 
the nobler one took up his expanding powers. 

Nor does this distinction divide men ac- 
cording to good and bad ; for while an aim- 
less man cannot be said to be good, he may 
cherish a very definite aim without ranking 
among the virtuous. Few men ever held to 
a purpose more steadily than Warren Has- 
tings, having for the dream and sole motive 
of his youth and manhood to regain the lost 
estates and social position of his family; 
but he can hardly be classed among good 
men. He is, however, a fine example of how 
a clearly conceived purpose strengthens and 
inspires a man. The career of Beaconsfield 
— one of the most brilliant figures among 
modern English statesmen — is another il- 
lustration of how a definite purpose carries 
a man on to its fulfillment. When the 
young Jew was laughed and jeered into 
silence in his first attempt to address the 
House of Commons, he remarked, "The 
time will come when you will hear me ; " 
speaking not out of any pettishness of the 
moment, but from a settled purpose to lead 
his compeers. The rebuff but whetted the 
edge of his already keen ambition. 

I do not mean to say that a purpose, if 



12 PURPOSE. 

cherished with sufficient energy, will always 
carry a man to its goal, — for every man 
has his limitations, — but rather that it is 
sure to carry him on toward some kind of 
success; often it proves greater than that 
aimed at. Shakespeare went down to Lon- 
don to retrieve his fortune, — a very laud- 
able purpose ; but the ardor with which he 
sought it unwittingly ended in the greatest 
achievements of the human intellect. Saul 
determined to crush out Christianity ; but 
the energy of his purpose was diverted to 
the opposite and immeasurably nobler end. 
It would be absurd for me to assure you 
that if you aim and strive with sufficient 
energy to become great statesmen, or the 
heads of corporations, or famous poets or 
artists, or for any other specific high end, 
you will certainly reach it. For though 
there are certain rich prizes that any man 
may win who will pay the price, there are 
others that are reserved for the few who are 
peculiarly fortunate or have peculiar claims. 
The Providence which, blindly to us, en- 
dows and strangely leads, apportions the 
great honors of life ; but Providence has 
nothing good or high in store for one who 
does not resolutely aim at something high 



PURPOSE. 13 

and good. A purpose is the eternal condi- 
tion of success. Nothing will take its place. 
Talent will not ; nothing is more common 
than unsuccessful men of talent. Genius 
will not ; unrewarded genius is a proverb ; 
the "mute, inglorious Milton " is not a 
poetic creation. The chance of events, the 
push of circumstances, will not. The nat- 
ural unfolding of faculties will not. Edu- 
cation will not ; the country is full of un- 
successful educated men ; indeed, it is a 
problem of society what to do with the 
young men it is turning out of its colleges 
and professional schools. There is no road 
to success but through a clear, strong pur- 
pose. Purpose underlies character, culture, 
position, — attainment of whatever sort. 
Shakespeare says : " Some achieve great- 
ness, and some have greatness thrust upon 
them ; " but the latter is external, and not 
to be accounted as success. 

It is worth while to look into the reasons 
of the matter a little. 

1. A purpose, steadily held, trains the 
faculties into strength and aptness. 

The first main thing a man has to do in 
this world is to turn his possibilities into 
powers, or to get the use of himself. Here 



14 PURPOSE. 

we are, packed full of faculties, — physical, 
mental, moral, social, — with almost no in- 
stincts, and therefore no natural use of 
them ; a veritable box of tools, ready for 
use. Think what a capability is lodged in 
the hand of the pianist or of the physician, 
— fairly seeing with his fingers. Or take 
the mechanical eye, instantly seizing propor- 
tions ; or the ear of the musician ; or the 
mind bending itself to mathematical prob- 
lems, or grouping wide arrays of facts for 
induction, — the every-day work of the pro- 
fessional man, the merchant, and the manu- 
facturer. How to use these tools — how to 
get the faculties at work — is the main ques- 
tion. The answer is, steady use under a 
main purpose. 

The call to-day is not only for educated, 
but for trained men. The next mightiest 
event that daily happens in this world of 
ours, after the sunrise, — that " daily mira- 
cle," as Edwin Arnold calls it, — is the 
publication of such a newspaper as the 
" New York Tribune " or " London Times." 
If it were possible to send to Mars or 
Jupiter a single illustration of our highest 
achievements, it should be a copy of a great 
Daily. I think nothing finer could be 



PURPOSE. 15 

brought back. But what produces this 
superb and gigantic achievement three hun- 
dred and more times a year ? Not learning, 
talent, energy, nor money, but training. 
From the editor-in-chief, with his frequent 
leaders, — broad, compact, trenchant, — 
and the manager, bringing together the 
various departments in just proportion and 
harmony, so that the paper goes from the 
press almost like the solar system in its 
adjusted balance, down to the folding and 
distributing departments, the work through- 
out is done by men trained to their specific 
tasks by steady and sympathetic habit. 

Every man's work should be both an in- 
spiration and a trade; that is, he should 
love it, and he should have that facility in it 
which comes from use. It is said that Na- 
poleon could go through the manual of the 
common soldier better than any man in his 
armies. He would not have been the great- 
est general had he not been the best soldier ; 
his genius would have been weak without the 
support of the drill and the practical know- 
ledge of all military details. So of railroad- 
ing, now one of the great callings ; it has 
become a nearly universal custom that every 
higher position shall be filled from below by. 



10 PURPOSE. 

promotion, according to excellence, and this 
excellence turns upon two points : an intelli- 
gent and sympathetic interest in the work, 
and consequent handiness in it. One cannot 
look over a company of railroad men without 
perceiving that those highest up have the 
most head for the entire business. I have 
noticed, in looking at machinery, that the 
proprietor can explain it better than the 
workman who operates it. 

All lines of business are conducted more 
and more upon the principle of promotion. 
Less and less do men step from one occupa- 
tion to another. The demand is for trained 
men. But life is too short and the standards 
are too severe for various trainings. Seldom 
is one found who has thoroughly fitted him- 
self for diverse pursuits. Our aptitudes are 
not many. Pick out the successful man in 
almost any occupation, and nearly without 
exception he will have been trained to it. 

2. Life is cumulative in all ways. A steady 
purpose is like a river, that gathers volume 
and momentum by flowing on. The success- 
ful man is not one who can do many things 
indifferently, but one thing in a superior 
manner. Versatility is overpraised. There 
ts a certain value in having many strings to 



PURPOSE 17 

one's bow, but there is more value in having 
a bow and a string, a hand and an eye, that 
will every time send the arrow into the bull's- 
eye of the target. The world is full of vaga- 
bonds who can turn their hands to anything. 
The man who does odd jobs is not the one 
who gets far up in any job. The factotum 
is a convenience, but he is seldom a success. 
The machinist who works in anywhere is not 
the one who is put to the nicest work. A 
certain concentration is essential to excel- 
lence, except in rare cases like Leonardo da 
Vinci, and Pascal, and Aristotle, and Frank- 
lin, whose natures were so broad as to cover 
all studies and pursuits. One of the most 
extensive wool-buyers in the world says that 
his success is due to the fact that his father 
and grandfather handled wool, that . his own 
earliest recollections were of handling wool, 
and that he has kept on handling it. The 
largest manufacturer of paper in the country 
is the son of a paper-maker, born and bred to 
all the details of the business. There are, 
indeed, many cases of large success where 
men have passed from one pursuit to another, 
but in most you will find a certain unity 
running through their various occupations. 
One may begin a stone-cutter and end a ge- 



18 PURPOSE. 

ologist, like Hugh Miller, or a sculptor, like 
Powers ; or as a machinist, and turn out an 
inventor ; or as a printer, and become a pub- 
lisher. A strong definite purpose is many- 
handed, and lays hold of whatever is near 
that can serve it ; it has a magnetic power 
that draws to itself whatever is kindred. 

3. A purpose, by holding one down to 
some steady pursuit and legitimate occupa- 
tion, wars against the tendency to engage in 
ventures and speculations. The devil of the 
business world is chance. Chance is chaotic; 
it belongs to the period 

" When eldest Night 
And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, held 
Eternal anarchy amidst the noise 
Of endless wars, and by confusion stood." 

It is opposed in nature to order and law ; it is 
the abdication of reason, the enthronement of 
guess. The chance element in business is not 
only demoralizing to the man, but in the long 
run it is disastrous to his fortunes. And if 
it yields a temporary success, it is a success 
unearned, and therefore unappreciated; for 
we must put something of thought and gen- 
uine effort into an enterprise before we can 
get any substantial good out of it. The de- 
falcations, the shoddy of society, the diamonds 



PURPOSE. 19 

gleaming on unwashed hands, the ignorance 
that looks through plate-glass, and no small 
part of the crime that looks through iron 
bars, are the creations of the chance or spec- 
ulative element in business. No good ever 
comes from it. If it lifts a man up, it is 
only to dash him to the earth. In Califor- 
nia they aptly call it " playing with the ti- 
ger," and the game always ends by the tiger 
eating the man. The chances in the stock 
market are less than in Chinese gambling, 
at which the Caucasian affects to laugh; 
but the Mongolian plays to better purpose 
with his one chance in ten than does the 
other in the ever-recurring bonanza. Few 
of the Forty-niners died rich, but almost 
every one at some time held a fortune in his 
hands. Their speculations are very like their 
smelting of quicksilver, — going up an ex- 
pansive vapor, but trickling back solid into a 
single reservoir. If there is one purpose a 
young man needs to hold to rigidly and 
without exception, it is to keep to legitimate 
methods of business. Don't abjure your rea- 
son by appealing to chance, nor insult order 
by taking up that which " by confusion 
stands." A steady purpose embodied in a 
substantial pursuit shuts out these chance 



20 PURPOSE. 

forms of business. Question the men of sub- 
stantial character and fortune, and you will 
find that they have avoided the illegitimate 
in business, and have held fast to some 
steady line of pursuit, — busy in prosperous 
times, and patiently waiting in hard times. 
The recurring periods of commercial depres- 
sion witness a bravery and sagacity worthy 
of highest admiration, — men conducting 
business year after year without profit or at 
a loss, keeping up their relations with the 
business world, carrying along their em- 
ployees, exercising forbearance with less for- 
tunate creditors, nursing the dull embers 
of their unremunerative business instead of 
petulantly suffering them to go out. Former 
years have shown us the heroism of war ; but 
these periods reveal the heroism of peace. 
When these brave, patient waiters upon for- 
tune reap their reward, those who gave up 
and turned to this and that will be found 
out of the ranks of the great army of pros- 
perity. 

It may seem from what I have said that 
I would advise young men to concentrate 
their entire energies upon a pursuit, and for- 
get all else. But I am far from doing that. 

The most fundamental mistake men make 



PURPOSE. 21 

is in not recognizing the breadth of their 
nature, ami a consequent working of some 
single part of it. One must give play to 
his whole nature and fill out all his relations, 
or he will have a poor ending. He must 
heed the social, domestic, and religious ele- 
ments of his being, as well as the single one 
that yields him a fortune. These should 
be embraced under a purpose as clear and 
strong as that which leads to wealth, and be 
cherished, not out of a bare sense of duty, 
but for manly completeness. The most piti- 
able sight one ever sees is a young man 
doing nothing ; the furies early drag him to 
his doom. Hardly less pitiable is a young 
man doing but one thing, — his whole being 
centred on money or fame, — forgetful of the 
broad world of intellectual capacity within 
him, of the broader and sweeter world of 
social and domestic life, and of the infinite 
world of the spirit that enspheres him and 
holds his destinies, whether he knows it or 
not. It is not only quite possible, but an 
easy and natural thing for a young man 
fronting life to say, I will make the most of 
myself ; I will recognize my whole nature ; 
I will neglect no duty that belongs to all 
men ; I will carry along with an even and 



22 PURPOSE. 

just hand those relations that make up a 
full manhood. 

I find four general purposes that should 
enter into the plan of every man's life as 
essential to its completeness. Hereafter I 
shall speak more definitely; now only of 
fundamental or leading purposes. 

1. A young man should have an employ- 
ment congenial, if possible, and as near as 
may be to the line of pursuit he intends to 
follow. I have anticipated much that might 
be said here. The choice of a profession or 
occupation is a hard one to handle practically 
or speculatively. So many are forced into 
work, and take that nearest at hand ; so 
many drift into an occupation because the 
time has come; so many are set to work 
too early for choice, that few seem left who 
can make a careful selection. It is a sad 
thing that any should be defrauded of this 
natural prerogative. It may be quite right 
to train a boy to a caUing, but never to the 
exclusion of his personal choice ; if for the 
ministry, and he deliberately prefers to be- 
come a machinist, or a farmer, or an editor, 
it must be suffered. A call, or calling, is 
a divine thing, and must be obeyed. Pitt 
was trained from his earliest years for the 



PURPOSE. 28 

place he filled, but for the most part great 
men have chosen for themselves. But one 
should settle the matter only after very- 
thorough consideration. Dr. Bushnell once 
said to a young man who was consulting him 
on this point, " Grasp the handle of your 
being," — a most significant and profound 
piece of advice. There is in every one a 
taste or fitness that is as a handle or lever 
to the faculties ; if one gets hold of it, he 
can work the entire machinery of his being 
to the best advantage. Before committing 
one's self to a pursuit, one should make a 
very thorough exploration of himself, and 
get down to the core of his being. The 
fabric of one's life should rest upon the cen- 
tral and abiding qualities of one's nature, 
— else it will not stand. Hence a choice 
should be based on what is within rather 
than be drawn from without. Choose your 
employment because you like it, and not 
because it has some external promise. The 
" good opening " is in the man, — not in cir- 
cumstances. An ill-adaptation will nullify 
any good promise, while aptitude creates 
success. All true life and good fortune are 
from within. God so made the world and 
all things in it ; " seed within itself " is the 



24 purpose. 

eternal law. I do not mean that every 
boy has an inborn taste for some specific 
work, — type-setting, or mining, or editing. 
Aptitudes are generic ; if one follows his 
general taste, he will probably succeed in 
several kindred pursuits. While we cannot 
well go contrary to nature, there is a certain 
play and oscillation of our faculties, as of 
the planets that yet keep to the appointed 
journey. The mechanical eye covers a large 
variety of employments. A spirit of minis- 
tration is fundamental to at least two of the 
great professions. One of an intensely re- 
flective disposition should not make existence 
a long battle by binding himself to a life of 
external activity ; and many a man pines and 
shrivels in the study who would exult in a 
life upon the soil. But having got into some 
occupation or line of pursuit that is fairly 
congenial, running in the direction of your 
inmost taste and aptitude, hold fast to it. 
If it is altogether distasteful after fair trial, 
throw it aside, and start again. No one can 
row against the stream all his life and make 
a success of it. It is fundamental that there 
should be in the main accord between the 
man and his work. I do not mean that one 
is absolutely to do the same thing — shove 



PURPOSE. 25 

the plane, beat the anvil, tend the loom, 
measure land, sell goods — to the end, but 
that he should continue in the same general 
department, thus utilizing previous aptness 
and experience. The work first undertaken 
may be too restricting ; one should be al- 
ways looking for its higher forms. One may 
climb by a steady purpose as well as by a 
persistent iteration of the same thing, but 
it must be in a related field of effort. Suc- 
cessful life is commonly of one piece ; and 
it comes of intelligent purpose, never by 
chance. 

2. Having thus settled into some fair line 
of pursuit, the next main purpose should be 
to get a home of one's own. Every young 
man expects to marry, and this expectation 
ought to carry with it the definite thought 
of a home, — a thing not realized under any 
boarding or renting system. 

I put this among the fundamental pur- 
poses simply because it is such. Character, 
happiness, destiny, turn on its realization. 
It is the main safeguard against immorality. 
It is essential to a development of the whole 
nature. It is the chief source of sound and 
abiding happiness. It is the surest defense 
against evil fortune. When once a home 



26 PURPOSE. 

has been secured, abject poverty rarely foL 
lows. Man is like the animals in that his 
first need is a place in which to hide his 
head. Indeed, a home sums up life ; outside 
of it life is meagre and partial. In the 
home every worthy purpose finds realization. 
It is the objective point in existence, — 
a home here and a home beyond. Hence it 
should not only mingle in one's dreams as 
among the probabilities, but should enter in 
among the distinct purposes. " A home of 
my own," — no phrase of English words is 
bo sweet as that. A bit of ground where you 
can plant a rose and hope to pluck its blos- 
soms as the summers come and go ; a roof 
that shall be your shelter for tender depen- 
dents ; a spot of earth and a house owned, 
and so ministering to that deep call for a 
resting place natural to us all; a home to 
hold those we most love while they live, and 
to enshrine their memory when they are 
gone ; the goal of labors, the sanctuary of 
the affections, the gateway into and out of 
the world, — a thing so central and large as 
this should enter into one's plans with sharp 
and strong purpose. 

3. Another central purpose should be to 
become a good citizen. This is not so trite a 



PURPOSE. 27 

point as it may seem. The moralizing on 
our relation to government that abounds in 
literature and common speech chiefly refers 
to subjects rather than to citizens. Obedi- 
ence and loyalty are old virtues ; citizenship 
is comparatively a new thing, of which we 
have yet hardly a full conception. To obey 
as subjects is a duty well understood ; to 
govern as citizens is a complex act, involving 
the two duties of obedience and ruling. 
The Sovereign People is a vast and signifi- 
cant phrase. If we were to speculate upon 
it, we should find that it involves the high- 
est function of man ; for man reaches the 
perfection of his nature when obedience and 
sway are perfectly coordinated, — that is, 
when he has learned to obey and to rule, 
doing each perfectly. To overcome and sit 
in an eternal throne is the highest glimpse 
of revealed destiny. It is something very 
grand and inspiring — if we will think of it 
— that our country puts upon us as citizens 
this sum and end of all duties ; that citizen- 
ship is in the direct line of eternal destiny. 
It is an adjustment of the political and the 
spiritual that marks the coming of the king- 
dom of heaven. One of the thoughts to 
which a young man should school himself is 



28 PURPOSE. 

that he is an actual part of the government. 
Good citizenship thus becomes an inalien- 
able duty, an obligation springing from the 
nature of things. When one is so related 
to the state, he cannot see a law broken, or 
a public trust abused, or an office perverted, 
without a sense of personal wrong. The 
great Louis said, " I am France," but every 
American citizen can say, " I am the state.'' 
By good citizenship I do not mean necessa- 
rily a mingling in what is technically named 
politics, though one must not hold one's self 
aloof from its details, but rather that the 
public welfare should weigh steadily on 
every man's heart and conscience ; as it 
was the duty of every Roman to " see to it 
that no harm came to the republic." 

I place good citizenship among the fun- 
damental aims, because it represents a feel- 
ing that is central to character. One cannot 
avoid it without self -in jury. It leaves a 
man exposed to the absorption of his private 
business, and so to that selfishness and nar- 
rowness which come from a limited range of 
interests. Exclusive devotion to the home 
makes one weak ; to business, selfish. A 
hearty and practical interest in the state 
alone can make one strong and large. 



PURPOSE. 29 

4. After one has well settled himself in 
these three main relations, — employment, 
home, country, — all other general purposes 
may be summed up in the one word culture ; 
or as this is a somewhat derided and over- 
used word at present, I will put it otherwise : 
resolve to make the most of yourself. Still 
that word culture is the best. Cultivate 
yourself ; I do not mean in the sense of put- 
ting on a finish, but of feeding the roots 
of your being, strengthening your capaci- 
ties, nourishing whatever is good, repress- 
ing whatever is bad. Determine that not 
a power shall go to waste ; that every fac- 
ulty shall do its utmost and reach its high- 
est. I say to you with all carefulness, the 
noblest sight this world offers is a young 
man bent upon making the most of himself. 
Alas that so many seem not to care what 
they become ; men in stature, but not yet 
born into the world of purpose and attain- 
ment, babes in their comprehension of life ! 
A cigar, a horse, a flirtation, a suit of clothes, 
a carouse, a low play or dance, and just 
enough work to attain such things, or got 
without work, — how the spirits of the wise, 
sitting in the clouds, laugh at them ! What 
an introduction to manhood and manly 



30 PURPOSE. 

duties ! One cannot thus start in life, and 
make himself master of it, or get any 
real good out of it. A part of his folly 
may ooze out as the burdens of life press 
on him, and necessity may drive him to 
sober labor, but he will halt and stumble 
to the end. It is a sad thing to begin life 
with low conceptions of it. There is no 
misfortune comparable to a youth without 
a sense of nobility. Better be born blind 
than not see the glory of life. It is not, 
indeed, possible for a young man to measure 
life, but it is possible to cherish that lofty 
and sacred enthusiasm which the dawn of 
life awakens. It is possible to say, — I am 
resolved to put life to its noblest and best 
use. 

If I could get the ear of every young man 
for but one word, it would be this : Make 
the most and the best of yourself . There is 
no tragedy like wasted life, life failing of 
its end, life turned to a false end. 

The true way to begin life is not to look 
off upon it to see what it offers, but to take 
a good look at self. Find out what you are, 
how you are made up, your capacities and 
lacks, and then determine to get the most 
out of yourself possible. Your faculties are 



PURPOSE. 31 

avenues between the good of the world and 
yourself ; the larger and more open they 
are, the more of it you will get. Your ob- 
ject should be to get all the riches and 
sweetness of life into yourself ; the method 
is through trained faculties. You find your- 
self a mind : teach it to think, to work 
broadly and steadily, to serve your needs 
pliantly and faithfully. You find in your- 
self social capacities : make yourself the best 
citizen, the best friend and neighbor, the 
kindest son and brother, the truest husband 
and father. Whatever you are capable of 
in these directions, that be and do. Let 
nothing within you go to waste. You also 
find in yourself moral and religious facul- 
ties. Beware lest you suffer them to lie 
dormant, or but summon them to brief peri- 
odic activity. No man can make the most 
of himself who fails to train this side of his 
nature. Deepen and clarify your sense of 
God. Gratify by perpetual use the inborn 
desire for communion with Him. Listen 
evermore to conscience. Keep the heart soft 
and responsive to all sorrow. Love with 
all love's divine capacity and quality. And 
above all let your nature stretch itself to- 
wards that sense of infinity that comes with 



32 PURPOSE. 

the thought of God. There is nothing that 
so deepens and amplifies the nature as the 
use of it in moral and spiritual ways. One 
cannot make the most of one's self who 
leaves it out. 

If these general purposes are resolutely 
followed, they are sure to yield as much of 
success as is possible in each given case. 

A pursuit followed in its main drift ; a 
home to contain the life ; good citizenship 
as the sum of public duties ; culture, or 
making the most of one's self, as the sum 
of personal and religious duties, — these are 
the four winds of inspiration that should 
blow through the heart of a young man ; 
these are the foundations of that city of 
character and destiny which, when built, 
lies four-square, — Work, Home, Humanity, 
and Self, as made in the image of God and 
for God. 



II. 

FKIENDS AND COMPANIONS 



11 God divided man into men that they might help eacn 
other." — Seneca. 

" A man that hath friends most show himself friendly." 
— Solomon. 

" A talent is perfected in solitude ; a character in the 
stream of the world." — Goethe. 

" Live with wolve9, and you will learn to howl." — 
Spanish Proverb. 

" Although unconscious of the pleasing charm. 
The mind still bends where friendship points the way ; 

Let virtue then thy partner's bosom warm, 
Lest vice should lead thy softened soul astray." 

Theognis, from Xenophon. 

" Beyond all wealth, honor, or even health, is the at- 
tachment we form to noble souls ; because to become one 
with the good, generous and true, is to become in a mea- 
sure good, generous, and true ourselves." — Db. Arnold. 



II. 

FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS. 

Without doubt, home and companions 
are the chief external influences that de- 
termine character. One is almost always 
good, because it is charged with divine in- 
stincts ; the other is uncertain in its char- 
acter, because it springs out of the chances 
of the world. The main feature of the home 
is love which " worketh no ill ; " hence its 
natural influence is favorable to good char- 
acter. Parents for the most part inculcate 
truth, purity, honesty, and kindness. With 
abundant allowance for mistake and neglect, 
the influence of parents and brother and sis- 
ter is good, but outside of the home there is 
no such certainty. 

When John bids father and mother good- 
by amongst the Berkshire hills, and goes to 
Boston or New York to make his way in the 
world, his future depends with almost math- 
ematical certainty upon the character of his 



36 FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS. 

associates. He may have good principles 
and high purposes ; tender words of advice 
are in his ears ; his Bible lies next his 
heart, and love follows him with unceasing 
prayers ; but John will do well or ill as he 
falls among good or bad companions. Ed- 
ucation, ingrafted principles and tastes, re- 
membered love, ambition, conscience, — all 
these will do much for him, but they will 
not avail against this later influence. 

There are many turning-points when the 
question of success or failure is decided again 
and again. Life is a campaign, in which a 
series of fortresses are to be taken ; all pre- 
vious victories and advances may be thrown 
away by failure in the next. Nearly the last 
of these is companionship ; if one wins the 
victory here, the reward of a prosperous 
manhood is within his reach. 

At the risk of logically inverting my sub- 
ject, I will speak first of friendship ; and I 
must beg your patience while I put a foun- 
dation under my suggestions. 

If there were but one general truth that I 
could lodge in the mind of any one or of all 
men, it would be this : that true life consist* 
in the fulfillment of relations. We are born 
into relations ; we never get out of them ; all 



FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS, 37 

duty consists in meeting them. The family, 
the church, the state, humanity at large, — 
these are the sources of our primary and 
abiding duties, as well as of our happiness, 
— the sum-total of ethics and religion. 

The relation of friends, though not so 
sharply defined as that of the family or the 
state, is as real and as essential to a full life. 
Emerson says : " Maugre all the selfishness 
that chills like east winds the world, the 
whole human family is bathed with an ele- 
ment of love like a fine ether." To get this 
ensphering love into form and expression, is 
the office of friendship. Bacon goes so far 
as to say that " a principal fruit of friend- 
ship is the ease and discharge of the full- 
ness of the heart." He goes on in his noble 
and wise way to name its other points, and 
nothing on the subject is better than his 
threefold statement of its uses : " Peace in 
the affections, support of the judgment, and 
bearing a part in all actions and occasions." 

It is not enough to love only our own 
family. Love is a great and wide passion, 
demanding various food and broad fields 
to range in. When one is only " a family 
man " he may have a sound nature, but it 
will not be a large or generous one ; and he 



38 FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS. 

will shrink rather than expand with years, 
and sink into the inevitable sadness that 
attends old age. 

Nor is Bacon's second point of less impor- 
tance, — to aid one's judgment. Advice 
can hardly come from any other than a 
friend when the question involves grave is- 
sues. A stranger is not sufficiently inter- 
ested, a relative is blinded by excess of love, 
but a friend's advice is tempered by affec- 
tion, while it is not overruled by the im- 
perativeness of natural instinct. There is 
much wisdom in the every-day words, " As 
a friend I advise you," for no other can ad- 
vise so well. 

Bacon's third point — friends as helpers 
on all occasions — does not have its full 
weight until we learn the late lesson that 
man is not equal to life. There is more to 
do than one can do alone, and an unfriended 
life will be poor and meagre. It is an old 
saying that " a friend is another self." If, 
as a mere matter of strength and resource, 
I were to face life with the choice of either 
a fortune or friends, I should be wiser to 
choose the latter as more helpful. Of 
course I regard friendship as a real and 
abiding thing, and not as that other thing 



FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS. 39 

that comes and goes with fortune. I have 
no faith in the miserable notions that the 
poor are friendless because they are poor, 
and that friends desert on the approach of 
poverty. Poverty may winnow the false 
from the true, but it does not destroy the 
wheat. The poor may be friendless, and 
even poor because they are friendless, never 
having won friends. This fine relation does 
not turn upon poverty, but upon disposition, 
or temper, or the chances of life. Happy 
is he who wins friends in early life by true 
affinities ! He multiplies himself ; he has 
more hands and feet than his own, and 
other fortresses to flee into when his own 
are dismantled by evil fortune, and other 
hearts to throb with his joy. 

Friendship is of such a nature that it is 
difficult to name rules for it ; it is its own 
law and method. So ethereal a thing can- 
not be brought under choice or rule. It is 
rather a matter of destiny. If one is born 
to have friends, he will have them. Emer- 
son says that one need not seek for friends ; 
they come of themselves. But Solomon 
goes deeper in his proverb : " A man that 
hath friends must show himself friendly." 
Let one offer to the world a large, generous, 



40 FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS. 

true, sympathetic nature, and, rich or poor, 
he will have friends, and he will never be 
friendless whatever catastrophes befall him. 
Not as given rules, but rather touching the 
matter in the way of suggestion, I will name 
a few points that it is well to think of : — 

1. Cultivate the friendly spirit. If one 
would have friends he must be worthy of 
them. The bright plumage and the songs 
of birds are designed to win their mates. 
It is in vain for one to say, I want friends ; 
I will go seek them. Go within, rather, 
and establish yourself in friendly sympathy 
with your fellow-men ; learn to love ; get 
the helpful spirit, and above all the respon- 
sive temper, and friends will come to you as 
birds fly to their beautiful singing mates. 

2. Make friends early in life, else you 
will never have them. Youth is often 
moody, and keeps by itself. The very in- 
tensity with which it wakes up to individ- 
uality drives it into solitariness, where it 
morbidly feasts on the wonderful fact of 
selfhood. There is danger also lest we be 
caught by entertaining companions instead 
of winning congenial friends, and so start 
in life with a set of mere associates. It is 
in the earliest part of our threescore and 



FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS. 41 

ten that life-long friends are made. Agree- 
able associations may be formed later, and 
now and then a friendship when there is 
great congeniality and freshness of spirit ; 
but friendship is a union and mingling, a 
shaping of plastic substances to each other 
that cannot be effected after the mould of 
life has hardened. We may touch here- 
after, but not mingle. 

3. Hold fast to your friends. It is one 
of the commonest regrets in after-life that 
early friendships were not kept up. Change 
of residence, neglect of correspondence or of 
holiday courtesies, some divergence of taste 
or belief or outward condition, — for some 
such cause a true friendship is often suffered 
to languish and die out. Shakespeare well 
says : — 

1 ' I count myself in nothing- else so happy 
As in a soul rememh'ring my good friends." 

And again in " Hamlet : " — 

" The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, 
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel." 

4. Make a point of having friends among 
your elders. Friendship between those of 
the same age is sweeter, but friendship with 
elders is more useful ; they supplement each 



42 FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS. 

other. One is the wine of life; the other 
is its food. The latter balances life, and 
brings the good of all periods down into 
one. It is one of the divinest features of 
human life that in this way there is no such 
thing as solitary youth or solitary age. 
Youth may get the value, if not the reality, 
of the wisdom of age, and age keep forever 
young. Theology and poetry assert eternal 
youth ; it is neither a dogma of one nor a 
dream of the other, but a logical realization 
of human sympathy and love. It is one of 
the mistakes in American society that the 
young people draw off into a society of their 
own. There is not only a strong flavor of 
vulgarity in it, but positive loss on both 
sides. 

5. Avoid having many confidants. It is 
weak; it breeds trouble. Secrets are not 
in themselves good things, but when of ne- 
cessity they exist their nature should be 
respected. Having them, it is well to keep 
them. Avoid also the effusive habit. It is 
pitiable to see a man pouring himself out 
into every listening ear, — mind and heart 
inverted, the girdle of selfhood thrown aside, 
and all the secret ways of the being laid 
open for the common foot. It is a violation 



FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS. 43 

of identity, a squandering of personality. 
The secretive temper is to be criticised, but 
it is not so fatal to character and dignity as 
its opposite. There may be times when one 
must speak all one's thought and emotion, — 
self is too small to hold the joy or grief; 
but, having done it, get back into your cita- 
del of selfhood. We never quite respect 
the man who tells us everything. Take your 
friends into your heart, but not into your 
heart of hearts; reserve that for yourself 
and God. 

6. Avoid absorbing and exclusive friend- 
ships. They are not wise ; they are selfish, 
and not of the nature of true friendship, 
forming a sort of common selfhood that is 
but a double selfishness. They commonly 
breed trouble, and end in quarrel and heart- 
break. 

This matter of friendship is often regarded 
slightingly, as a mere accessory of life, a 
happy chance if one falls into it, but not 
as entering into the substance of life. No 
mistake could be greater. It is not, as 
Emerson says, a thing of " glass threads or 
frost-work, but the solidest thing we know." 
" There is in friendship " — as Evelyn writes 
in the " Life of Mrs. Godolphin " — " some- 



44 FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS. 

thing of all relations and something above 
tin-in all. It is the golden thread that ties 
the hearts of all the world." 

It is not pleasant to touch such a subject 
on its utilitarian side, still it is well to know 
that it is one of the largest factors of suc- 
cess not only in the social, but also in the 
commercial and political worlds. Many a 
merchant is carried through a crisis by his 
friends when the strict laws of business would 
have dropped him into ruin. It was Lin- 
coln's immeasurable capacity for friendship 
that made his splendid career possible. It is 
no idle thing. Happiness, success, character, 
largely turn upon it. I shall know more of 
a man from knowing his friendships, than I 
can gain from any other single source. Tell 
me if they are few or many, good or bad, 
warm or indifferent, and I will give you a 
reliable measure of the man. 

Companionship logically goes before 
friendship, but I put it last, as the larger 
and more important relation for you to con- 
sider. One shapes itself by a law of affinity ; 
the other is made. Choose your companions 
wisely, and your friendships will come about 
naturally. 

Young men are often told that conceit and 



FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS. 45 

willfulness are their most marked qualities. 
I do not believe it. Their largest capability 
is that of inspiration. They do not readily 
take advice ; they resent scolding, and ut- 
terly rebel against force, but they yield with 
the certainty of gravitation to personal in- 
fluence. Through this capability all good 
and evil get into us. Youth is its period. 
Then heart and mind are open for all winds 
to blow through, — " airs from heaven or 
blasts from hell." A great part of the ad- 
vantage of a college course is the contact 
for four years with a set of men who are 
scholars and gentlemen. It is impossible to 
overestimate the inspiring influence of con- 
tact with such men as those college Presi- 
dents, now passed away, Woolsey and Hop- 
kins and Wayland. "The strongest influ- 
ence I took away from Yale," said an able 
graduate, " was the spirit of the president." 
" Something in President Hopkins's letter 
drew me to Williams," said Garfield. The 
healthiest influence at work to-day in Eng- 
lish society runs back to Dr. Arnold, of 
Rugby. He made the men who are now 
making England. Dean Stanley says of 
him, " His very presence seemed to create a 
new spring of health and vigor within them, 



46 FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS. 

and to give to life an interest and elevation 
which dwelt so habitually in their thoughts 
as a living image, that, when death had 
taken him away, the bond appeared to be 
still unbroken, and the sense of separation 
almost lost in the still deeper sense of a life 
and a union indestructible." It is often 
hard to tell where the good that is in us 
comes from, but most of it is inspired, — 
caught by contact with the good. "It is 
astonishing," says Mozley, " how much good 
goodness makes." Old John Brown said, 
" For a settler in a new country, one good 
believing man is worth a thousand without 
character." It is not the teaching of the 
pulpit nor of the schools, but the men who 
walk up and down the streets, that deter- 
mine the character of a community. If the 
leaders of society are not noble, no drill of 
teaching nor pungency of exhortation will 
arouse high thoughts in the young. 

I hesitate to touch the subject more closely, 
because it takes us into a field where it is 
nearly impossible to say anything that is 
not trite ; but if the subject does not admit 
of originality, it admits of earnestness. I 
ask you to look well to this matter of com- 
panions. Evil influences are not resistible; 



FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS. 47 

they may not always overcome, but they 
inevitably hurt. 

For the sake of distinctness, let us put the 
matter into the form of rules. 

Resolutely avoid all companionship that 
falls below your taste and standard of right. 
If it offends you, reject it with instant deci- 
sion ; a second look is dangerous. The wise 
lines of Pope cannot be quoted too often : — 

" Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, 
As, to be hated, needs but to be seen ; 
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, 
We first endure, then pity, then embrace." 

Familiarity with evil, the familiarity of 
contact or intimate knowledge, never ceases 
to be dangerous to any one. It is the glory 
and perfection of female virtue that it does 
not know evil. The difficulty in securing an 
honest and decent police is due to their close 
contact with vice and crime. It is not in 
human nature to endure such contact and 
remain pure. Whenever you meet a person 
whose knowledge of evil ways is full and 
close and exact, you may be sure he is not 
sound at heart. Such knowledge is not 
knowledge, for knowledge pertains to order. 
A philosopher in chaos would have no voca- 
tion. If an associate swears, or lies, or 



48 FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS. 

drinks, or gambles ; if he is tricky, or las- 
civious, or vile in his talk ; if his thoughts 
easily run to baseness, put a wide space be- 
tween him and yourself ; give room for the 
pure winds of heaven to blow between you. 
But a closer distinction is to be made. Get 
at the temper of your associate ; or, in your 
own sensible phrase, find out the kind of a 
fellow he is, before you make a friend of 
him. On the first show of meanness or lack 
of honor, let him go. If he is without a high 
ambition, beware of him. If his thoughts 
run strongly to some one thing, like money, 
or dress, or society, or popularity, he can do 
little for you. If he is cruel or negligent of 
duty to his family, if he is quick to take un- 
due advantage, if he is penurious, if he scoffs 
at religion, if he derides the good, if he is 
skeptical of virtue, if he is scornful of good 
custom, you cannot afford to class yourself 
with him. 

But one cannot always choose his asso- 
ciates. I do not forget how many of you 
are thrown together in the same office, or 
store, or shop, or mill or class. But this 
does not necessitate intimate and sympa- 
thetic relations. Here is where you are to 
choose, and stand firm in your choice. The 



FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS. 49 

attitude of a mean or bad man is, Come to 
my level if you would be my friend ; and 
he is right. Companionship must be on a 
level morally, though it need not be intel- 
lectually. An ignorant person may be a 
harmless and even pleasant friend. Sam 
Lawson, in Mrs. Stowe's " Oldtown Folks," 
was a very good companion for man or boy, 
despite his general good - for - nothingness. 
Men may associate, and waive almost all 
other differences but that of character. The 
moral line reaches up to heaven and down 
into eternal depths. It cannot be passed 
and repassed. If you make companions of 
the bad, you will end in being bad. " Live 
with wolves," says the Spanish proverb, 
" and you will learn to howl." It is the 
beginning of a tragedy sad beyond thought 
when a young man enters a set of a lower 
moral tone than his own, — the set that 
drinks a little, and gambles a little, and 
discusses female frailty a little ; some of 
whom take a little from their employers on 
the score of a small salary, and drink a 
little more than the rest on the ground of 
a steadier head, and affect a little deeper 
knowledge of the world, and lie with less 
hesitation, and scoff with a louder accent ; — 



50 FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS. 

it is not a pleasant sight to see a young 
man cast by chance, or drawn by persua- 
sion, into such a set as this. Superiority of 
mind is not proof against it. It was the 
wild smuggler boys of Kirkoswald who led 
Burns astray. 

It is one of the worst features of modern 
society that such sets as these are every- 
where taking an actual organization, with 
membership and rooms and fees. Society, 
from top to bottom, is running to clubs. It 
is a matter not easily disposed of, — having 
a good and a bad side. In a complex 
state of society, such forms of social life 
will spring up. But when the clubs are 
organized on a basis of dissipation, however 
mild and however veiled, there is little 
question as to their influence. They destroy 
more than moral principles ; they wreck 
manhood and health and high purpose and 
self-respect. A young man may enter such a 
club, but no man comes out of it ; manhood 
evaporates under this organized pressure 
of inanity and vice, and leaves something 
fitter to creep than to walk, — " beastly 
transformations," who 

" Nor once perceive their foul disfigurement, 
But boast themselves more comely than before." 



FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS. 51 

But let us get over to the positive and 
better side of our subject. I make as a 
last suggestion that you associate as much 
as possible with persons of true worth and 
nobility of character. The main use of a 
great man is to inspire others. There is a 
truth parallel to the doctrine of Apostolic 
Succession through the laying on of hands, 
which, to my mind, is better than the doc- 
trine. The succession of all high and noble 
life is through personality. Seek always 
the superior man. If you are already in a 
calling, get among those who excel in it. 
Every professional man will tell you that he 
cannot associate with one of low grade in 
his calling without injury, nor with one high 
up without fresh stimulus. It is well to 
get near men of reputed energy and worth. 
The fascination that draws us to the great 
is deep and divine ; it is a call to share their 
greatness, the divine way of distributing it 
to all. Get close to men of energy, and see 
how they work, — to men of thought, and 
catch their spirit and method ; get near the 
refined and cultivated in mind and man- 
ners, and feel their charm. The most trans- 
forming influence upon a young man is that 
of a noble, intelligent, refined woman ; not 



"Manners are the shadows of virtue." — Sydney 
Smith. 

"High thoughts seated in a heart of courtesy." — 
Sidney. 

"The compliments and ceremonies of our breeding 
should recall, — however remotely, the grandeur of our 
destiny." — Emerson. 

"Love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous." — St. 
Paui- 

" Who misses or who wins the prize ? 
Go, lose or conquer as you can ; 
But if you fail, or if you rise, 

Be each, pray God, a gentleman." 

Thackeray. 

" How sweet and gracious, even in common speech, 
Is that fine sense which men call Courtesy ! 
Wholesome as air and genial as the light, 
Welcome in every clime as breath of flowers, — 
It transmutes aliens into trusting friends, 
And gives its owner passport round the globe." 

J. T. Fields. 

" The appellation of gentleman is never to be affixed 
to a man's circumstances, but to his behavior in them. 
For this reason I shall ever, as far as I am able, give my 
nephews such impressions as shall make them value 
themselves rather as they are useful to others, than as 
they are conscious of merit in themselves." — The Tat- 
leb, No. 207. 



in. 

MANNERS. 

Perhaps there is no better starting-point 
in this subject than the one most remote 
from its real centre, — our national manners. 
The foreign critics tell us that we are rap- 
idly improving in our behavior ; we are too 
conscious of the need to resent the patroniz- 
ing comment, and eagerly wait for the sure 
coming of that type of manners — higher 
than has yet been realized — when our in- 
stitutions have fully ripened the character of 
the people. 

In the externals of behavior we are in 
advance of the last generation. The im- 
mense development in taste and art that 
has come about through foreign travel and 
world-expositions has a corresponding de- 
velopment in manners. Uncouthness of 
dress, roughness of speech, and the general 
barbarity of manners that once prevailed in 
large sections of the country have largely 



56 MANNERS. 

passed away. The salutations, respect for 
another's personality, the care of the person, 
the tones of the voice, and the use of lan- 
guage, — all are better than they were. Is 
there also an improvement in feeling and mu- 
tual relation ? The external, in the main, is 
indicative of what is within. Great masses 
of people are not hypocrites. The kindlier 
address shows a kinder spirit and a truer 
sense of equality. The deference of a cen- 
tury ago was the offspring of aristocracy ; 
that, indeed, has passed away with the dy- 
ing out of its source. But if we no longer 
bow down before our fellows, we entertain 
for them a more rational respect. To go 
a little closer into the matter, the masses 
have greatly improved in manners, but the 
class which used to be regarded as aristo- 
cratic and especially well-bred has deterio- 
rated, as was to be expected. The with- 
drawal of the deference of the lower classes, 
as our institutions began to be felt, threw 
it into confusion. The old-time aristocrat 
— and a noble figure he was — is con- 
sciously out of place and relations ; his man- 
ners suffer in consequence, and now, like 
Portia's English suitor, he "gets his beha- 
vior everywhere." 



MANNERS. 57 

But we must not infer that we are yet a 
people of refined manners. Dr. Bushnell, 
many years ago, said that emigration tended 
to barbarism. We are a nation of emi- 
grants ; the greater part of us, for two hun- 
dred years, have lived in the woods, and the 
shadows of primeval forests still overhang 
us. There must be more intelligence, more 
culture, a more evenly distributed wealth, 
a denser population, and a fuller realization 
of our national idea, which is also the 
Christian idea, — personality, — before we 
can claim to be a well-bred people. In 
Europe, the good manners of the great per- 
colate down to the masses. One conse- 
quently hears and sees there a delicacy of 
behavior and gentleness of address not com- 
mon here. It is, however, largely external 
and a matter of imitation. We have few 
such outstanding examples, and whatever of 
attainment we have is genuine and from 
within. We are destined to see on this con- 
tinent a form of manners more genuinely 
refined and noble than the world has yet 
known. Just now we are in an open place 
between the going out of aristocratic or feu- 
dal habits and ways and the coming in of 
a culture and behavior based on equality 



58 MANNERS. 

and mutual respect. It must be confessed 
that we lack conspicuous examples of the 
kind of gentleman that is to be looked 
for in this country. Washington was un- 
doubtedly a very true and noble gentleman ; 
but he was not the American gentleman of 
the future, being essentially English. With 
certain abatements and additions in minor re- 
spects, Lincoln must be regarded as coming 
nearer our true type. Lowell was our best 
representative of high cidture combined 
with democratic sentiment, and he well met 
the ideal of the gentleman we are to look 
for. 

But let us get nearer our subject. Every 
young man desires above all else to be re- 
garded as a gentleman. None of us can 
bear any other imputation. You may ac- 
cuse one of violating the entire decalogue 
with less offense than if you tell him he is 
not a gentleman. Here is something very 
deep and weighty. What is this that so 
outweighs every other good word and esti- 
mate ? So fine a thing necessarily has many 
counterfeits ; and so we will search it with 
definitions. 

The word undoubtedly comes from the 
Latin gens, meaning tribe or family. Hence 



MANNERS. 59 

all the one-sided and incomplete notions 
that a gentleman is a man of family. It is 
a good thing to be well born, with inher- 
ited tastes and traditions ; but birth does 
not make the gentleman. Once dependent 
upon birth, he is so no longer. Julius Hare, 
himself a fine illustration of his definition, 
says : " A gentleman should be gentle in 
everything ; at least in everything that de- 
pends upon himself, — in carriage, temper, 
construction, aims, desires. He ought, there- 
fore, to be mild, calm, quiet, temperate ; 
not hasty in judgment, not exorbitant in 
ambition, not overbearing, not proud, not 
rapacious, not oppressive." Ruskin makes 
the leading traits of a gentleman to be fine- 
ness, sensitiveness, and sympathy, each in- 
volving the other. Professor Lieber, who 
has written on the subject in a manly way, 
says : " The word gentleman signifies that 
character which is distinguished by strict 
honor, self-possession, forbearance, generous 
as well as refined feelings, and polished de- 
portment, — a character to which all mean- 
ness, explosive irritability, and peevish fret- 
fulness are alien ; to which, consequently, 
a generous candor, scrupulous veracity and 
essential truthfulness, courage, both moral 



60 MANNERS. 

and physical, dignity and self-respect, liber- 
ality in thought, argument, and conduct are 
habitual, and have become natural. It im- 
plies also refinement of feelings and lofti- 
ness of conduct to the dictates of morality 
and the precepts of religion ; " — a long, hard 
sentence, but well worth our study. Mr. 
Calvert says : " The gentleman is never un- 
duly familiar ; takes no liberties ; is chary 
of questions ; is neither artificial nor af- 
fected ; is as little obtrusive upon the mind 
or feelings of others as on their persons ; 
bears himself tenderly towards the weak and 
unprotected ; is not arrogant ; cannot be 
supercilious ; can be self - denying without 
struggle ; is not vain of his advantages, ex- 
trinsic or personal ; habitually subordinates 
his lower to his higher self ; is, in his best 
condition, electric with truth, buoyant with 
veracity.'' Mr. Emerson, who writes on the 
theme with keenest inward sympathy, as 
well as discrimination, says : " The gentle- 
man is a man of truth, lord of his own 
actions, and expressing that lordship in his 
behavior ; not in any manner dependent and 
servile either on persons, or opinions, or 
possessions. Beyond this fact of truth and 
real force, the word denotes good nature 



MANNERS. 61 

or benevolence, — manhood first, and then 
gentleness." Sir Philip Sidney — himself 
the ideal gentleman — put the whole matter 
into one pregnant phrase : " High thoughts 
seated in a heart of courtesy." You will 
notice that in these conceptions of a gentle- 
man the moral element predominates ; not 
family, nor station, nor manners, but qual- 
ities. They do, indeed, take on and draw 
after them external forms, for the in and 
the out must at last be alike ; but the essen- 
tial condition, that which makes one a gen- 
tleman, is moral qualities. 

Following this unanimous hint, we will try 
to get these qualities into some order. 

1. Truth. One who well knew described 
a perfect man as one who " speaketh the 
truth in his heart," — inward truthfulness, 
outward veracity ; this goes before all else 
in making up the gentleman. Calvert says : 
" A gentleman may brush his own shoes or 
clothes, or mend or make them, or roughen 
his hands with the helve, or foul them with 
dye-work or iron-work ; but he must not 
foul his mouth with a lie." A lie makes 
relations impossible. When two persons 
meet, there can be no true conversation un- 
less it is thoroughly understood that each 



62 MANNERS. 

is himself : I am I, and you are you ; I say 
what is true, and I believe that you say 
what is true. This is the foundation of all 
human intercourse. Nor can a man long be 
himself who does not speak the truth. He 
duplicates and reduplicates himself, loses all 
sense of personality, and becomes a mere 
phenomenon, flickering among men with a 
false light, trusted by none, and at last is 
lost even to himself ; for a liar finally ceases 
to believe himself ; his memory, judgment, 
and even senses fail to bring him true re- 
ports. There is no girdle that will hold a 
man together and make him a person but 
the truth. And so it enters fundamentally 
into the highest type of personal character. 
Among those who wear the title of gentle- 
man, it takes precedence of all else, even 
kingly dignity. Charles I. said to the Com- 
moners, " You have not only the word of a 
king, but of a gentleman." When Nicholas 
of Russia desired to assure the English am- 
bassador that he was speaking the truth, he 
said, " I desire to speak with you as a gen- 
tleman." The reason that some occupations 
traditionally exclude those following them 
from the rank of gentleman is because they 
foster lying. In certain forms of trade, 



MANNERS. 63 

where the values are unknown, or varia- 
ble, or obscure, the temptation to lie is so 
strong that it becomes nearly universal, and 
those following such callings are presumed 
to be unworthy of the society of gentlemen. 
Truthfulness is the chastity of men ; when 
once sacrificed, caste is forever lost. A gen- 
tleman not only speaks the truth, but is 
truthful. " He never dodges," says Emer- 
son. He looks squarely at person or thing, 
because he proposes to see things and per- 
sons as they are. And being attuned to 
truth within, his voice will have the pitch of 
truth ; the very poise of his body and sway 
of his members will have a certain direct- 
ness born of truth. 

2. Kindness of heart ; — " The willing- 
ness and faculty to oblige," Emerson calls 
it. If one has not this, he may step aside. 
If truth is the foundation of good manners, 
kindness is the superstructure, — that which 
most appears, and which constitutes them. 
The phraseology of refined society is express- 
ive of love and interest. We begin letters 
with a term of endearment, and we used to 
end them with an assurance of humble ser- 
vice. Those were fine old every-day words, 
— now used too little, — "I am at your ser* 



04 MANNERS. 

vice," " What are your commands ? " The 
gentleman exists to help; he has no other 
vocation. If you desire to cultivate your- 
selves in this matter, let your husbandry be 
in this direction. A spirit of universal good- 
will, a generous heart, and an open hand, — 
be strong in these, and you may claim this 
badge of highest nobility. But if you are 
exclusive, if you lack heart, if your hand 
is kept closed except when pried open by 
shame or stout appeal, if you go about in a 
spirit of caution and reserve and secret dis- 
dain of all but your set, you are out of our 
high category ; neither money, birth, nor 
sleekness can smuggle you in. The immense 
mistake in this matter is that the tokens of 
good-will are made partial and exclusive. 

There are enough to love and help their 
own, but such consideration gives no true title 
to the rank of gentleman. It is the very 
essence of gentlemanhood that one is helpful 
to the weak, the poor, the friendless, the 
humble, the miserable, the degraded. A 
gentleman will not be too cautious where he 
bestows his favors. The economists preach 
against street beggars, but your Charles 
Lamb cannot be kept from dropping occa- 
sional pennies into their hats. He is not too 



MANNER8. 65 

critical of the testimonials of the shipwrecked 
sailor, and he sees the wan face and rags of 
poverty more than he listens to its improba- 
ble tale. He does not mind whose bundle he 
carries, if so he relieves some aching arm ; 
nor how low the doorway he enters, if he 
can carry cheer across the threshold. 

3. If truth is the foundation and kindness 
is the superstructure of the gentleman, honor 
is his atmosphere, — a hard thing to define, 
but a very real thing as we see it, or the lack 
of it. It is akin to truth, but is more, — its 
aroma, its flower, its soul. It is that which 
makes a gentleman's word as good as his 
bond. We get its exact meaning when it is 
used in connection with female virtue. It 
may be defined as an exquisite and imperative 
self-respect. Honor is an absolute and ulti- 
mate thing. It knows nothing of abatement, 
or change, or degree. It governs with a noble 
and inexorable necessity. The man of honor 
dies sooner than break its lightest behest. 
To those who do not know it, it is less than 
the summer cloud ; to those who have it, ad- 
amant is not so solid. The man of honor 
may be trusted to the uttermost ; he does 
not know temptation. It is a mail that dis- 
courages even the aiming of arrows. Charles 



66 MANNERS. 

Sumner thought there was but little bribery 
in Washington ; he had never seen anything 
of it. The man of honor has no price. Mr. 
Smiles, in one of his admirable books, says 
that Wellington was once offered half a mil- 
lion for a state secret not of any special value 
to the government, but the keeping of which 
was a matter of honor. " It appears you are 
capable of keeping a secret," he said to the 
official. " Certainly," he replied. " Then so 
am I," said the general, and bowed him out. 
Honor is offended even at the thought of its 
violation. It is the poetry of noble man- 
hood : — 

" That away, 
Men are but gilded loam or painted clay." 

Unhappy is he who comes to years of man- 
hood and finds it weak and dull ; unhappier 
still is he who has lost it by some deliberate 
act. He can never again be quite the same 
man. Tarnished honor in man or woman is 
the one stain that cannot be washed out. The 
best word upon it in all literature, I think, is 
in Burns's " Epistle to a Young Friend :" — 

" But where ye feel your honor grip, 

Let that aye be your border ; 
Its slightest touches, instant pause ; 

Debar a' side pretences, 
And resolutely keep its laws, 

Uncaring consequences." 



MANNERS. 67 

4. We put next delicacy, — fineness of 
fibre. It is made up of quick perception 
and fine feeling. It leads one to see in- 
stantly the line beyond which he may not 
go ; to detect the boundary between friend- 
liness and familiarity, between earnestness 
and heat, between sincerity and intolerance 
in pressing your convictions, between style 
and fussiness, between deference and its 
excess. It is the critic and mentor of the 
gentleman. It tells him what is coarse and 
unseemly and rude and excessive. It warns 
him away from all doubtful acts and per- 
sons. It gives little or no reason, — it is 
too fine for analysis and logical process, — 
but acts like a divine instinct, and is to be 
heeded as divine. A man may be good 
without it, but he will lack a nameless 
grace ; he will fail of highest respect ; he 
will miss the best companionship ; he will 
make blunders that hurt him without his 
knowing why ; he will feel a reproach that 
he cannot understand. It is this quality 
more than any other that draws the line in 
what is called good society. Men often 
wonder why they are shut out from certain 
grades of society ; they are well dressed, in- 
telligent, moral, rich, amiable, — still the 



68 MANNERS. 

door is shut. Let them, if they can, mea- 
sure their Jibre, and they will usually get at 
the cause. It is this quality that guides in 
matters of dress, the length and frequency 
of visits ; that discriminates between the 
shadow and substance in all matters of eti- 
quette. It determines the nature and num- 
ber of questions one may ask of another, 
and sees everywhere and always the invisible 
boundary that invests personality. 

5. I name next respect and consideration 
for others, — something more than kindness 
and less ethereal than delicacy, but enter- 
ing quite as largely and imperatively into 
the every-day life of the gentleman. You 
perceive at once that it tallies with our 
Faith, — not self, but another. To con- 
sider tenderly the feelings, opinions, circum- 
stances, of others, — what is this but Chris- 
tian ? 

There is one respect in which our Anglo- 
Saxon race — especially when the Norman 
strain is thin — is simply brutal in its man- 
ners, namely, its treatment of the ludicrous 
when it involves pain. A person, old or 
young, on sitting down, misses the chair and 
comes to the floor, and the room screams 
with laughter. What could be more es- 



MANNERS. 69 

sentially cruel and barbarous? A public 
speaker stammers, and the audience giggles. 
They 1 would be kinder, he thinks, if they 
would pelt him with the foot-stools. A mis- 
take, a peculiarity, an accident, often in- 
volves a ludicrous element, but it is well 
to remember that a sense of the ludicrous 
is not the loftiest of emotions. The simple 
question in such cases is not, How does the 
looker-on feel ? but, How does the other per- 
son feel? If there were a litany of good 
manners, it might well begin, From gig- 
gling, good Lord, deliver us. The word 
vulgar will not often be found on these 
pages, but we would like to gather up all 
the meaning and emphasis lodged in it and 
pour them upon this habit of inconsiderate 
laughter at the misfortunes of others. 

Let us hasten to the pleasanter side of 
our subject. The oft- quoted historical illus- 
tration of this grace of consideration, never 
to be passed by, is that of Sidney, at the 
battle of Zutphen, handing the cup of water, 
for which he longed with dying thirst, to 
the wounded soldier beside him : " He needs 
it more than I." 

" How far that little candle throws his beams ! " 

Like it is the incident of Sir Ralph Ar> 



70 MANNERS. 

ercrombie, — told by Smiles, — who, when 
mortally wounded, found under his head the 
blanket of a private soldier, placed there to 
ease his dying pains. " Whose blanket is 
this ? " " Duncan Roy's." " See that Dun- 
can Roy gets his blanket this very night," 
said Sir Ralph, and died without its com- 
fort. Smiles gives another tine instance of 
this divine grace, all the better from its 
spontaneity. Two English navvies in Paris 
saw, one rainy day, a hearse, with its burden, 
winding along the streets, unattended by a 
single mourner ; falling in behind, they fol- 
lowed it to the cemetery. It was only senti- 
ment, but it was fine and true. Such senti- 
ment leads a captain to go down with his 
ship ; the fireman to pass through flame ; 
the soldier to go on the forlorn hope. 
When spontaneous, it shows that our nature 
is sound at the core ; when wrought into a 
conscious habit, it reveals the divine glory 
that every life may take on. 

One imbued with this high quality never 
sees personal deformity or blemish. A lame 
man could easily classify his friends as to 
their breeding by drawing a line between 
those who ask how it happened, and those 
who refrain from all question. I say dis« 



MANNERS, 71 

tinctly, the gentleman never sees deformity. 
He will not talk to a beggar of his rags, nor 
boast of his health before the sick, nor speak 
of his wealth among the poor ; he will not 
seem to be fortunate among the hapless, nor 
make any show of his virtue before the vi- 
cious. He will avoid all painful contrast, 
always looking at the thing in question from 
the standpoint of the other person. 

The gentleman is largely dowered with 
forbearance. The preacher will not dogma- 
tize nor indulge in personality before an 
audience that has no chance to reply. The 
lawyer will not browbeat the witness — no, 
not even to win his case — if he is a gentle- 
man. The physician is as delicate as purity 
itself, and as secretive as the grave. There 
is no finer touchstone of the gentleman than 
the forbearing use of power or advantage 
over another : the employer to his men, the 
husband to his wife, the creditor to his 
debtor, the rich to the poor, the educated 
to the ignorant, the teacher to pupils, the 
prosperous to the unfortunate. 

" Oh, it is excellent 
To have a giant's strength ; hut it is tyrannous 
To use it like a giant." 

6. How far manners are to be made a mat- 



72 MANNERS. 

ter of rule, is a question you will inevitably 
ask. From within out — is the fundamen- 
tal law; still there is an external view of 
the subject quite worth heeding. 

There is a certain fine robustness of char- 
acter that is prone to pay little heed to the 
" thou shalt " and " thou shalt not " of so- 
ciety ; and there is a certain spirituality that 
says, "Make your own rules." There is 
much truth in both positions, but it is deli- 
cate ground to tread on ; one needs to be 
sure-footed and quick-eyed, to avoid falls. 
Upon the whole, and for the most of us, it 
is better that there should be a code of so- 
cial laws, well understood and rather care- 
fully observed ; at least, one should always 
have them at hand, ready for use. There 
are many things that help to make life easy 
and agreeable which are not taught by intui- 
tion. Nor could we live together in mutual 
convenience unless we agreed upon certain 
arbitrary rules as to daily intercourse. If 
it is well to have these common habits and 
interchanges of courtesy, it is well to have 
them in the best form, even to punctilious- 
ness. Without doubt, what are called the 
manners of society are not only a part of 
gentlemanhood, but are extremely conven- 



MANNERS. 73 

ient. I am not about to indicate these rules, 
but I may suggest that in all matters of 
dress, of care of the person, of carriage, of 
command of the features and voice and 
eyes, and of what are called the ways of 
good society, it is of great use to be well 
informed. They will not take you one step 
on the way, but they will smooth it, and 
the lack of them may block it altogether. 
The main dependence must be on the things 
we have considered. If one is centrally 
true, kind, honorable, delicate, and consid- 
erate, he will almost without fail have man- 
ners that will take him into any circle 
where culture and taste prevail over folly. 
Still, this inward seed needs fostering. It 
should levy on all graceful forms, on prac- 
tice and discipline, on observation, on fash- 
ion even, and make them subserve its native 
grace. Watch those of excellent reputation 
in manners. Keep your eyes open when you 
go to the metropolis, and learn its grace ; 
or, if you live in the city, when you go to 
the country, mark the higher quality of 
simplicity. Catch the temper of the great 
masters of literature ; the nobility of Scott^ 
the sincerity of Thackeray, the heartiness of 
Dickens, the tenderness of Macdonald, the 



74 



MA.XXER8. 



delicacy of Tennyson, the grace of Long- 
fellow, the repose of Shakespeare. 

Manners in this high sense, and so learned, 
take one far on in the world. They are ir- 
resistible. If you meet the king he will 
recognize you as a brother. They are a 
defense against insult. All doors fly open 
when he who wears them approaches. They 
cannot be bought. They cannot be learned 
as from a book ; they cannot pass from lip 
to lip ; they come from within, and from 
a within that is grounded in truth, honor, 
delicacy, kindness, and consideration. 

These pages may fall under the eyes of 
some readers along with the Christmas-tide. 
No theme is more appropriate to it. The 
spirit of these days is alive with tenderest 
courtesy. A gentleman can have no better 
watchword than that sung at Bethlehem : 
" Peace on earth, good-will to men." 

" Come wealth or want, come good or ill, 
Let old and young accept their part, 
And bow before the awful will, 
And bear it with an honest heart. 



; Who misses or who wins the prize ? 

Go, lose or conquer as you can ; 
But if you fail, or if you rise, 

Be each, pray God, a gentleman. 



MANNERS. 75 

" A gentleman, or old or young ! 

(Bear kindly with my humble lay.) 
The sacred chorus first was sung 
Upon the first of Christmas .lays ; 

u The shepherds heard it overhead, 
The joyf id angels raised it then : 
Glory to God on high, it said, 

And peace on earth to gentle — men." l 

3 Epilogue to Dr. Birch and his Young Friends* 



IV. 
THRIFT. 






" Thrift is the best means of thriving." — Guesses at 
Truth. 

" Economy, whether public or private, means the wise 
management of labor ; and it means it mainly in three 
senses : namely, first, applying your labor rationally ; sec- 
ondly, preserving its produce carefully ; lastly, distribut- 
ing its produce seasonably." — Ruskin. 

" In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening with- 
hold not thy hand ; for thou knowest not whether shall 
prosper, either this or that, or whether they shall be alike 
good. ' ' — Solomon. 

" The virtues are economists. ' ' — Emerson. 

" No man can gauge the value, at the present critical 
time, of a steady stream of young men, flowing into all 
professions and all industries, who have learned resolutely 
to speak in a society such as ours : ' I can't afford.' " — 
Thomas Hughes. 



IV. 

THRIFT. 

We have so long been told that we are a 
thrifty people that we go on assuming it as 
a fact without fresh examination. Thrift is 
more apt to be a phase than a characteristic 
of the life of a nation, — a habit than a prin- 
ciple. That we are thrifty because our an- 
cestors were no more follows than that the 
ship which sails out of the harbor stanch and 
tight will be sound when she returns from a 
long and stormy voyage. It was not from 
any instinct or natural trait that our fore- 
fathers were thrifty, but from a moral neces- 
sity. The Celt is naturally thrifty. The 
Anglo-Saxon is thrifty only when there is 
some strong motive behind or before him; 
he is thrifty for a reason, and this certainly 
is the best foundation for the virtue. The 
early settlers found themselves here in cir- 
cumstances out of keeping with their char- 
acters, — poor in one and rich in the other, 



80 THRIFT. 

and so set about overcoming the discrepancy. 
Their large and noble conceptions of man 
required that he should be well housed and 
cared for. Dr. Holmes says : " I never saw 
a house too fine to shelter the human head. 
Elegance fits man." When Nero built his 
palace of marble and ivory and gold, he 
said, " This is a fit house for a man." The 
scientists tell us that environment and life 
stand in a relation of necessity; they cer- 
tainly stand in the relation of fitness. The 
strong, divinely nourished common sense of 
our fathers perceived this, and they hus- 
banded as earnestly as they prayed. They 
could give up all for a cause and take no 
thought for the morrow, if the occasion re- 
quired, but they knew how to discriminate 
between the rare occasion for total self-sacri- 
fice and the conduct of every-day life. Con- 
sequently thrift soon got a strong hold. 
New England early produced two great in- 
spiring minds, — Jonathan Edwards and 
Benjamin Franklin. Ear apart in spirit and 
character, they formed a grand unity in their 
influence. One taught religion, the other 
thrift ; one clarified theology, the other 
taught the people how to get on. Edwards 
tided New England over the infidelity that 



THRIFT. 81 

prevailed in the last century ; Franklin ere- 
ated the wealth that feeds society to-day by 
inspiring a passion for thrift. Hence, for a 
century, irreligion and beggary were equally 
a reproach, and still in no country in the 
world is the latter held so vile. 

But these formative influences are evi- 
dently waning. Nor is it to be altogether 
regretted. Both were too austere to be per- 
petually healthful ; neither regarded the 
breadth and scope of human nature. The 
danger is lest the ebb in thrift be exces- 
sive, and its method be exchanged for others 
not so sure and wholesome. Thrift pertains 
to details. It is alike our glory and our 
fault that we are impatient of details. Our 
courage prompts to risks, our large-minded- 
ness invites to great undertakings ; both 
somewhat adverse to thrift, — one essen- 
tially, and the other practically, — because 
great undertakings are for the few, while 
thrift is for all. Large enterprises make 
the few rich, but the majority prosper only 
through the carefulness and detail of thrift. 
To speak of it is a Scylla and Charybdis 
voyage ; while shunning the jaws of waste, 
there is danger of drifting upon the rocks 
of meanness. I say frankly, if either fate 



82 THRIFT. 

is to befall us, I would rather it were not the 
last. 

I begin by insisting od the importance of 
having money. Speculate and preach about 
it as we will, the main factor in civilized 
society is money. As the universe of worlds 
needs some common force like gravitation 
to hold them to their place, so society re- 
quires some dominating passion or purpose 
to hold its members in mutual relations. 
Money supplies this end. Without some 
such general moving force, society would be 
chaotic ; men could not work together, could 
achieve no common results, could have no 
common standards of virtue and attainment. 
Bulwer says : " Never treat money affairs 
with levity ; money is character." And in- 
deed character for the most part is deter- 
mined by one's relation to money. Find 
out how one gets, saves, spends, gives, lends, 
borrows, and bequeathes money, and you 
have the character of the man in full out- 
line. " If one does all these wisely," says 
Henry Taylor, " it would almost argue a 
perfect man." Nearly all the virtues play 
about the use of money, — honesty, justice, 
generosity, charity, frugality, forethought, 
self-sacrifice. The poor man is called to 



THRIFT. 83 

certain great and strenuous virtues, but he 
has not the full field of conduct open to him 
as it is to the man of wealth. He may un- 
dergo a deep and valuable discipline, but he 
will not get the full training that a rich man 
may. St. Paul compassed the matter by 
knowing how to abound as well as how to 
suffer want. Poverty is a limitation all the 
way through ; it is good only as in all evil 
there is " a soul of goodness." Mr. Jarvis 
says, "Among the poor there is less vital 
force, a lower tone of life, more ill health, 
more weakness, more early death." If pov- 
erty is our lot, we must bear it bravely, and 
contend against its chilling and stifling influ- 
ences ; but we are not to think of it as good, 
nor in any way save as something to be 
avoided or gotten rid of, if honor and honesty 
permit it. I wish I could fill every young man 
who reads these pages with a dread and horror 
of poverty. I wish I could make you so feel 
its constraint and bitterness, that you would 
make vows against it. You would then read 
patiently what I shall say of thrift. You 
may already have a sufficiently ill opinion 
of poverty, but you may not understand that 
one is already poverty-stricken if his habits 
are not thrifty. Every day I see young men 



84 THRIFT. 

— well dressed, with full purses and some- 
thing of inheritance awaiting them — as 
plainly foredoomed to poverty as if its rags 
hung about them. 

The secret of thrift is forethought. Its 
process is saving for use ; it involves also 
judicious spending. The thrifty man saves ; 
savings require investments in stable and 
remunerative forms ; hence that order and 
condition of things that we call civilization, 
which does not exist until one generation 
passes on the results of its labors and savings 
to the next. Thus thrift underlies civili- 
zation as well as personal prosperity. The 
moment it ceases to act society retrogrades 
towards savagery, the main feature of which 
is absence of forethought. A spendthrift or 
idler is essentially a savage ; a generation of 
them would throw society back into barba- 
rism. There are a large number of young 
men — chiefly to be found in cities — who rise 
from their beds at eleven or twelve ; break- 
fast in a club-house ; idle away the afternoon 
in walking or driving ; spend a part of the 
evening with their families, the rest at some 
place of amusement or in meeting the en- 
gagements of society ; bring up at the club- 
house or some gambling den or place of 



THRIFT. 85 

worse repute ; and early in the morning be- 
take themselves to bed again. They do no 
work ; they read but little ; they have no re- 
ligion ; they are as a class vicious. I depict 
them simply to classify them. These men 
are essentially savages. Except in some 
slight matters of taste and custom, they are 
precisely the individuals Stanley found in 
Central Africa, with some advantages in 
favor of the African. Some years ago, Mr. 
Buckle startled the reading world by putting 
the Roman Catholics of Spain and the high 
Calvinists of Scotland in the same class, as 
alike in the generic trait of bigotry, though 
differing in matters of belief. Precisely in 
the same way, and with the same logical 
correctness, these idlers are to be put in 
the same category with savages. They live 
under the fundamental characteristic of sav- 
agery, namely, improvidence. Our young 
man of leisure has a rich father, and the 
African has his perennial banana, and, upon 
the whole, rather a surer outlook. 

The chief distinction between civilization 
and barbarism turns on thrift. Thrift is 
the builder of society. Thrift redeems man 
from savagery. 

What are its methods ? 



86 THRIFT. 

1. I name the first in one word, — save. 
Thrift has no rule so imperative and without 
exception. If you have an allowance, teach 
yourself on no account to exhaust it. The 
margin between income and expenditure is 
sacred ground, and must not be touched 
except for weightiest reasons. But if you 
are earning a salary, it matters not how 
small, plan to save some part of it. If you 
receive seventy-five cents per day, live on 
seventy ; if one dollar, spend but ninety ; you 
thus save thirty dollars a year, — enough to 
put you into the category of civilization. 
But he who spends all must not complain if 
we set him down logically a savage. Your 
saving may be small, but it represents a 
feeling and a purpose, and, small as it is, it 
divides a true from a spurious manhood. 

Life in its last analysis is a struggle. 
The main question for us all is : which is 
getting the advantage, self or the world? 
When one is simply holding his own, spend- 
ing all he earns, and has nothing between 
himself and this " rough world," he is in 
a fair way to be worsted in the battle. He 
inevitably grows weaker in the course of 
nature, while the pitiless world keeps to its 
pitch of heavy exaction. 



THRIFT. 87 

There is a sense of strength and advan- 
tage essential to manly character, springing 
from however slight gains. Say what we 
will about " honest poverty," — and I would 
say nothing against it, for I well know that 
God may build barriers of poverty about a 
man, not to be passed, yet within which he 
may nourish a royal manhood, — still the 
men who escape from poverty into indepen- 
dence wear a nobler mien than those who 
simply keep even with the world. Burns is 
the poet of the poor man, and has almost 
glorified poverty, but he put into none of 
his verses more of his broad common sense 
than into these : — 

" To catch Dame Fortune's golden smile, 
Assiduous wait upon her ; 
And gather gear hy ev'ry wile 

That 's justified hy honor : 

Not for to hide it in a hedge, 

Nor for a train attendant ; 

But for the glorious privilege 

Of heing independent." 

It is a great part of this battle of life to 
keep a good heart. The prevailing mood of 
the poor is that of sadness. Their gayety 
is forced and fitful. Their drinking habits 
are the cause and the result of their poverty. 
There is no repose, no sense of adequacy, no 



88 THRIFT. 

freedom, after one has waked up to the fact 
that he is poor. It takes but little to re- 
deem one from this feeling. The spirit and 
purpose of saving changes the whole color 
of life. It is not necessary to have already 
made accumulations to secure your own or 
others' indorsement of your manliness. 
The direction you face will be sufficient. I 
recall the homely story of the young man 
who applied to the father of " the dearest 
girl in the world " for permission to marry, 
and, in answer to the searching and inevi- 
table question (don't forget that you must 
meet it) as to his resources and ability to 
support a wife, was obliged to confess that 
he had no money, but declared that he was 
" chock-full of day's work." Money was 
only a question of time. 

It can hardly be expected that you will 
look ahead twenty or forty years, and realize 
the actual stings of poverty and the sharper 
stings of thriftless habits ; but it may be 
expected that you will see why it is wiser 
and more manly to save than to spend. 
There is a certain fascinating glamour about 
the young man who spends freely; whose 
purse, whether deep or shallow, is always 
open ; who is always ready to foot the bills ; 



THRIFT. 89 

who says yes to every proposal to spend, and 
produces the money. I have known such in 
the past, but as I meet them now I find 
them quite as ready to foot the bills, but 
generally unable to do so. I have noticed 
also that the givers, and the benefactors of 
society, had no such youthhood. This pop- 
ular and fascinating young man is in reality 
a poor creature ; very interesting he may be 
in the matter of drinks, and billiards, and 
theatre tickets, and suppers, and clothes, 
and club-rates ; but when he earns five or 
eight or ten hundred dollars a year, and 
spends it chiefly in these ways, would charity 
itself call him anything but a fool? The 
boys hail him a royal good fellow, and the 
girls pet him, but who respects him ? I do 
not write of him here with any hope of bet- 
tering him ; he is of the class of whom it is 
said that an experience in a mortar would be 
a failure. I speak to a higher grade of in- 
telligence. The painful fact, however, is to 
be recognized, that the saving habit is los- 
ing ground. The reasons are evident ; city 
and country are one. The standards of 
dress, amusements, and life generally are set 
in the richer circles of the metropolis, and 
are observed, at whatever cost, in all other 



90 THRIFT. 

circles. I can do nothing to offset these 
influences but to remind you of nobler 
methods. I can only say that to spend 
all one earns is a mistake ; that while to 
spend, except in a severe and judicious 
way, weakens character, economy dignifies 
and strengthens it. 

The habit of saving is itself an education. 
It fosters every virtue. It teaches self-de- 
nial. It cultivates a sense of order. It 
trains to forethought, and so broadens the 
mind. It reveals the meaning of the word 
business, which is something very different 
from its routine. One may know all the 
forms of business, even in a practical way, 
without having the business characteristic. 
Were a merchant to choose for a partner 
a young man thoroughly conversant with 
the business, but having expensive, self-in- 
dulgent habits, or one not yet versed in its 
details, yet who knows how to keep a dol- 
lar when he has earned it, he would unhes- 
itatingly take the latter. The habit of saving, 
while it has its dangers, even fosters gener- 
osity. The great givers have been great 
savers. The miserly habit is not acquired, 
but is inborn. Not there lies the danger. 
The divinely - ordered method of saving so 



TF1RIFT. 91 

educates and establishes such order in the 
man, and brings him into so intelligent a 
relation to the world, that he becomes a 
benefactor. It is coarse thinking to con- 
found spending with generosity, or saving 
with meanness. 

2. I vary the strain but little when I say : 
avoid a self-indulgent spending of money. 

The great body of young men in our coun- 
try are in the receipt of such incomes that 
the question whether a thing can be afforded 
or not becomes a highly possible inquiry. 
With incomes ranging from a dollar or less 
per day to a thousand dollars a year, there is 
room for the play of that wise word, afford. 
I think it tends to shut out several things that 
are very generally indulged in. I have no in- 
tention of saying anything here against the 
pleasant habit of smoking, except to set it in 
the light of this common-sense word, afford. 
Your average salaries are, say, five hundred 
dollars. If you smoke cigars, your smallest 
daily allowance will be two, costing at least 
twenty cents, — I assume that you do not de- 
grade yourselves by using a cheaper article, 
— which amounts to more than seventy dol- 
lars a year. If it were fifty, it would be a 
tenth of your salary. The naked question 



92 THRIFT. 

for a rational being to consider is : can I 
afford to spend a tenth or a seventh of my 
income in a mere • indulgence ? What has 
common sense to say to the proportion? 
Would not this amount, lodged in some 
sound investment, contribute rather more to 
self-respect ? Ten years of such expenditure 
represent probably a thousand dollars, for 
there is an inevitable ratio of increase in all 
self-indulgent habits ; fifty years represent 
five thousand, — more than most men will 
have at sixty-five, who begin life with so 
poor an understanding of the word afford. 
Double these estimates, and they will be all 
the truer. I do not propose in these pages 
to enter on a crusade against tobacco, but I 
may remind you that the eye of the world is 
fixed on the tobacco habit with a very close 
gaze. The educators in Europe and Amer- 
ica are agreed that it impairs mental energy. 
Life insurance companies are shy of its pe- 
culiar pulse. Oculists say that it weakens 
the eyes. Physicians declare it to be a pro- 
lific cause of dyspepsia, and hence of other 
ills. The vital statistician finds in it an en- 
emy of virility. It is asserted by the lead- 
ing authorities in each department that it 
takes the spring out of the nerves, the firm- 



THRIFT. 93 

out of the muscles, the ring out of the 
voice ; that it renders the memory less re- 
tentive, the judgment less accurate, the con- 
science less quick, the sensibilities less acute ; 
that it relaxes the will, and dulls every fac- 
ulty of body and mind and moral nature, 
dropping the entire man down in the scale of 
his powers, and so is to be regarded as one 
of the wasters of society. I do not under- 
take to affirm all these propositions, but 
only to show how the social critics of the day 
are regarding the subject. 

The habit of drinking is so nearly par- 
allel with smoking in its relation to thrift 
that it need not detain us. The same co- 
gent word afford applies here with stronger 
emphasis, because the drinking habit in- 
volves a larger ratio of increase. Waiving 
any moral considerations involved in beer 
drinking, the fact of its cost should throw 
it out. The same startling figures we have 
used are more than true here. It is not a 
thrifty habit, and no young man who has 
his way to make* in the world is entitled to 
an unthrifty habit. It is idle to repeat the 
truisms of the theme. We have heard till 
we cease to heed that drink is the great 
waster of society. Great Britain spends 



94 THRIFT. 

annually two hundred and fifty millions of 
dollars in drink. Our own statistics are 
nearly as bad. It is the one thing — even 
if it does not reach the proportions of a vice 
— that keeps more men out of a competence 
than all other causes combined. The twin 
habits of smoking and beer-drinking stand 
for a respectable property to all who in- 
dulge in them, — a thing the greater part 
will never have, though they have had it. 
" The gods sell all things at a fair price," 
says the proverb ; but they sell nothiDg 
dearer than these two indulgences, since the 
price is commonly the man himself. 

The simple conclusion that common sense 
forces upon us is that a young man front- 
ing life cannot afford to drink ; he cannot 
afford the money ; he cannot afford to bear 
the reputation nor run the risks it involves. 

I refer next to the habit of light and 
foolish spending. Emerson says, " The 
farmer's dollar is heavy ; the clerk's is light 
and nimble, leaps out of his pockets, jumps 
on to cards and faro tables." But it gets 
into no more foolish place than the till of the 
showman, and minstrel troupe, and theatri- 
cal company. I do not say these things are 
bad. When decent, they are allowable as 



THRIFT. 95 

an occasional recreation, but here, as before, 
the sense of proportion must be observed ; 
not what I like, but what I can afford. 

It has been said that no one should carry 
coin loose in the pocket, as too easily got at. 
I would vary it by applying the Spanish 
proverb, " Before forty, nothing ; after forty, 
anything." If one has been careful in early 
life, he may be careless after. At first let 
the purse be stout and well tied with stout 
strings; later there need be no purse, but 
only an open hand. 

It seems to be an excess of simplicity to 
suggest that a young man should purchase 
nothing that he does not actually want, 
nothing because it is cheap ; that he should 
resist the glittering appeals of jewels and 
fine clothing and delicate surroundings. 

3. It is an essential condition of thrift 
that one should keep to legitimate occupa- 
tions. There is no thrift in chance ; its 
central idea is order, — a series of causes 
and effects along the line of which fore- 
thought can look and make its calculations. 
Speculation makes the few rich and the 
many poor. Thrift divides the prizes of 
life to those who deserve them. If the 
great fortunes are the results of specula* 



96 THRIFT. 

tions, the average competencies have their 
foundation and permanence in thrifty ways. 

4. Have a thorough knowledge of your 
affairs ; leave nothing at loose ends ; be 
exact in every business transaction. The 
chief source of quarrel in the business world 
is what is termed " an understanding," end- 
ing commonly in a misunderstanding. It is 
not ungenerous nor ignoble always to insist 
on a full, straight-out bargain, and it falls 
in with the thrifty habit. 

It is a simple matter to name, but I can- 
not resist saying that the habit of keeping 
a strict account cf personal expenses down 
to the penny has great educational power. 
Keep such a book, tabulate its items at the 
close of the year, — so much for necessaries, 
so much for luxuries, so much for worse 
than luxuries, — and listen to what it re- 
ports to you. 

5. Thrift has a secret foe in debt, as it 
has open ones in vice and idleness. It may 
sometimes be wise for one to put himself 
under a heavy debt, as for an education, or 
for a home ; but the debt-habit is the twin 
brother of poverty. 

6. Thrift must have a sufficient motive. 
There is none a young man feels so keenly, if 



THRIFT. 97 

once he will think so far, as the honorable 
place assigned to men of substance. No 
man is quite respectable in this nineteenth 
century who has not a bank account. True 
or false, high or low, this is the solid fact, 
and, for one, I do not quarrel with it. As 
most of us are situated in this world, we 
must win this place and pay its price. The 
common cry of " a good time while we are 
young " is not the price nor the way. Mr. 
Nasmyth, an English inventor and the holder 
of a large fortune made by himself, says : " If 
I were to compress into one sentence the 
whole of my experience, and offer it to young 
men as a rule and certain receipt for success 
in any station, it would be comprised in these 
words, Duty first, pleasure second ! From 
what I have seen of young men and their 
after progress, I am satisfied that what is 
called 'bad fortune,' 'ill luck,' is, in nine 
cases out of ten, simply the result of invert- 
ing the above maxim. " 

" Serve a noble disposition, though poor," 
says George Herbert ; " the time comes when 
he will repay thee." 

We cannot properly leave our subject un- 
til we have referred to spending ; for thrift 
consists in the putting out, as well as the in- 



98 THRIFT. 

gathering, of money. It decides how, and 
to what extent, we shall both save and spend. 
We must leave ample room for the play of 
generosity and honor ; we must meet the de- 
mands of church and home and community 
with a wise and liberal hand ; we must pre- 
serve a keen and governing sense of steward- 
ship, never forgetting the ultimate use of 
money, and the moral and intellectual reali- 
ties that underlie life. This matter of thrifty 
saving is instrumental, — simply to bring us 
into circumstances where self-respect, a sense 
of independence and of usefulness, are possi- 
ble ; or, putting it more closely, we save in 
order to get into the freedom of our nature. 
Were the wisdom of the whole subject gath- 
ered into one phrase, it would be : when 
young, save ; when old, spend. But each 
must have something of the spirit of the 
other ; save generously, spend thriftily. 

If I were to name a general principle to 
cover the whole matter, I would say : spend 
upward, that is, for the higher faculties. 
Spend for the mind rather than for the 
body ; for culture rather than for amusement. 
The very secret and essence of thrift consists 
in getting things into higher values. As the 
clod turns into a flower, and the flower in- 



THRIFT. 99 

spires a poet ; as bread becomes vital force, 
and vital force feeds moral purpose and aspi- 
ration, so should all our saving and out-go 
have regard to the higher ranges and appe- 
tites of our nature. If you have a dollar, or 
a hundred, to spend, put it into something 
above the average of your nature, that you 
may be attracted to it. Beyond what is 
necessary for your bodily wants and well- 
being, every dollar spent for the body is 
a derogation of manhood. Get the better 
thing, never the inferior. The night sup- 
per, the ball, the drink, the billiard table, 
the minstrels, — enough calls of this sort 
there are, and in no wise modest in their 
demands, but they issue from below you. 
Go buy a book instead, or journey abroad, 
or bestow a gift. 

I have not urged thrift upon you for its 
own sake, nor merely that you may be kept 
from poverty, nor even for the ease it brings, 
but because it lies near to all the virtues and 
antagonizes all the vices. It is the conserv- 
ing and protecting virtue. It makes soil 
and atmosphere for all healthy growths. It 
favors a full manhood. It works against the 
very faults it seems to invite, and becomes 
the reason and inspiration of generosity. 



V. 

SELF-RELIANCE AND COURAGE. 



" And having done all, to stand. Stand, therefore." — 
St. Paul. 

" ' Hell (a wise man has said) is paved with good inten- 
tions.' Pluck up the stones, ye sluggards, and break the 
devil's head with them." — Guesses at Truth. 

"A mass, that is to say, collective mediocrity." — 
John Stuart Mill. 

1 ' This above all : to thine own self be true ; 
And it must follow, as the night the day, 
Thou canst not then be false to any man." 

Hamlet, i. 3. 

" Ask thy lone soul what laws are plain to thee, 
Thee and no other, — stand or fall by them ! 
This is the part for thee ; regard all else 
For what they may be, — Time's illusion." 

Browning. 



SELF-RELIANCE AND COURAGE. 

So far we have spoken chiefly of conduct ; 
in this chapter we speak of that interior 
thing which we call selfhood or personality. 
To get a clear, full sense of it is a great 
achievement, leading as it does to this qual- 
ity or state of self-reliance. No man is self- 
reliant, or has intelligent courage, until he 
has come to a thorough sense of himself ; not 
in any way of conceit or self-complacency, 
but by a deliberate survey and examination 
of himself, as if from the outside. 

I think we may all agree with Humboldt 
that the aim of man should be to secure 
" the highest and most harmonious develop- 
ment of his powers to a complete and con- 
sistent whole ; " or, as we said in the first 
chapter, " to make the most of himself.'' 
This is the specific work of civilization, — 
to get the individual out of the mass and 
exalt him into personality. In savagery one 
is the duplicate of another. In civilization 



104 SELF-RE LI AXLE AND COURAGE. 

there is variety, or rather individuality, in 
the exact degree of the civilization. It 
conies about, as Mr. Mill tells us, through 
" freedom and variety of situations." Free- 
dom takes off the restraints, so that what- 
ever is in the man comes out. Civilization 
offers the variety of situations needful for 
developing and confirming the individual 
traits. Thus there will be the most of 
strong, distinct character where there is the 
largest freedom and the most complex civil- 
ization. In simpler form, freedom gives us 
a chance ; civilization stimulates us. 

Other things, indeed, help to bring out 
individuality. Necessity spurs a man, and 
opportunities allure him. Both have had 
full play in this country. Poverty on one 
hand and ungathered wealth on the other, 
— these have largely created the American 
type. Hence in a new country almost every 
man is what is called " a character." I 
think I noticed in California a sharper indi- 
viduality than I see in New England. The 
Englishman feels uncomfortably the broad 
and pronounced diversity of character he 
finds here, and we are obliged to confess 
that English society is just a little weari- 
some from the lack of it. 



SELF-RELIANCE AND COURAGE. 105 

Religion also influences individuality. A 
superstition, a fixed form, a false faith, or a 
false rendering of the true faith, represses 
individuality. Idolaters and bigots resem- 
ble one another and are herd Mke, but a faith 
like Christianity, that is full of freedom and 
is throughout keyed to conscience, stimu- 
lates individuality. All along it has blos- 
somed out into great original characters, — 
poets, statesmen, inventors, navigators, ex- 
plorers, philanthropists. It was the secret 
of the Reformation that it restored to Chris- 
tianity its normal order of freedom, long in- 
terrupted ; when the pressure was taken off, 
all Europe burst into a brilliancy of thought 
and discovery such as the world had never 
seen. The literature of the Elizabethan 
age outranks that of Greece, not in perfec- 
tion of form, but because it is instinct with 
a freedom not to be found in the ancients. 
Shakespeare may not be so great an artist 
as Sophocles, but he stimulates character as 
the Greek did not. I would like to remind 
young men in these days of insinuating, 
slighting infidelity that the glory and force 
of modern civilization is the direct and logi- 
cal outcome of Christianity. Its root-idea 
is deliverance. It first freed the human 






106 SELF-RELIANCE AND COURAGE. 

mind ami then inspired it. It is something 
more than a matter of church and Bible ; it 
is a life-giving spirit ; it is an atmosphere ; 
it is the soul of the world. 

Race also has much to do with individu- 
ality. The blood that has force and courage 
in it produces the widest variety of charac- 
ter. It is significant that Christianity allies 
itself most readily to the strongest races, en- 
tering into them as quicksilver mingles with 
gold. The strong race opposes it at first 
with the stoutest will, and questions it with 
the profoundest interrogation, but at length 
accepts it, because, at bottom, they sympa- 
thize. A weak race debases Christianity 
when it receives it ; it cannot stand up under 
its stout duties, but the strong race takes it 
at its full measure. 

This Anglo-Saxon blood of ours, with its 
refining strain of Norman, is the best in the 
world. It contains the virtues as a heritage, 
and holds the vices as alien. It honors mar- 
riage and the home ; it speaks the truth ; it 
is honest ; it is rich, comprehensive, charged 
with the widest possibilities. Its inmost 
quality is force, hence its clearest exj)onent 
is individuality. It tends to erect each man 
into a full-rounded person, whence comes 



SELF-RELTANCE AND COURAGE. 107 

liberty ; for liberty is but the assertion of 
personality, with its rights and obligations. 
Such it has been of old and hitherto ; let 
us hope that it will never lose this quality. 
Some one, I have forgotten who, has pointed 
out the significant fact that the god of our 
Scandinavian ancestors was not a Zeus hurl- 
ing thunderbolts, but a Thor wielding a 
hammer ; the Greek god shed arrows of 
fate ; the Scandinavian beat down obstacles. 
An old Norseman, not mythologic, had for 
a crest a pickaxe, with the motto : " Either 
I will find a way or make one." And an- 
other said, " I believe neither in idols nor 
demons ; I put my sole trust in my own 
strength of body and soul." 

Just because the main quality of this 
blood is force, it retains this characteristic. 
Not every youth, with this forceful blood 
in his feins, carries Thor's hammer in his 
hand, but it is hidden somewhere about him. 
To get it into the strong right hand, where 
it can be wielded against the obstacles in 
the way of manhood, is the business before 
us. 

When one rides through Italy and sees 
the brawny peasants stretched at ease by 
the roadside, one reflects that they have a 



108 SELF-RELIANCE AND COURAGE. 

justification in their blood. But a lazy, list- 
less, forceless Anglo-Saxon is a contradiction 
of his own nature. 

The most notable exhibitions of this blood 
are to be seen in its emigrations. A factory 
stretching across a valley indicates energy, 
but it does not reveal the particular quality 
of self-reliance as does the emigration of a 
man from the East to the frontier. The 
ancient emigrations were in masses ; the 
Anglo-Saxon does not wait for his neighbor, 
but takes counsel with himself, gathers to- 
gether his family, and starts. Men do few 
braver things. I have never been prouder 
of my race than when I have come across, 
perched upon a swell of endless, desolate prai- 
rie in Nebraska, or hidden in some remote 
glen of the Sierras, the rough dwelling of 
a white-skinned settler, come there in the 
mighty strength of his self-reliance to build 
a home and hammer out a fortune with this 
same hammer of Thor. He is not a Mexi- 
can wandering with his herds, or " white 
trash " crowded to the frontier, but one of 
Bacon's " founders." All English history 
is behind him and in him. He not only 
wins a living, but subdues nature to his use 
and taste, and makes soil and tree and ore 



SELF-RELIANCE AND COURAGE. 109 

tributary to his grandly-conceived selfhood, 
lie is a person — quite conscious of the fact ; 
he wants what belongs to a man, and by 
the aid of Thor's hammer, he will get it. 
Put a few of these Anglo-Saxons down any- 
where on the continent, and forthwith they 
bring all civilization to their doors. 

Another feature of this civilization is its 
expansive character, its tendency to com- 
plexity, adding something new and perma- 
nent every year. What it will attain to 
when it has cleared all traditional obstacles 
out of its way, and got into full freedom, is 
beyond conception, because we have no con- 
ception of what is in man. 

The thing I wish to get before young men 
is, that they are summoned by inheritance 
to a very lofty type of self-reliance and man- 
hood. But we sometimes fail of our birth- 
right. Other influences may work against 
inborn tendency and force, and all good 
things need culture. Necessity is the spur 
to self-reliance ; a noble pride and self-re- 
spect are its atmosphere. Where there is 
wealth the spur is apt to lose its sharpness, 
and often self-respect is smothered under an 
accumulation of social influences. 

My first direct word on the subject wiD 



110 SELF-RELIANCE AND COURAGE. 

be an appeal to young men to realize, each 
one for himself, that he is & person. 

It is not every man who has said to him- 
self, " I am I ; I am not another, but I am 
myself." There are many who have not 
yet ascertained whether they are themselves 
or some one else, and are quite as often one 
as the other ; many who do not get them- 
selves detached from the mass of humanity, 
but live and act out of the common stock of 
thought and feeling. When a man agrees 
with everything I say, however carelessly I 
am talking, there is really but one of us. 
When Hamlet likened the cloud to a camel, 
a weasel, and a whale, and Polonius assented, 
there was but one person in the colloquy ; 
Polonius was nobody. To be a person, to 
have opinions and respect them, — this is 
something at once necessary and difficult, 
because at the same time a young man 
should heed and value the opinions of others, 
and steer wide of the slough of conceit. At 
one extreme is the young man who agrees 
with everybody, and goes with the crowd ; at 
the other is one who knows everything and 
has settled all questions. The latter may 
be the more odious at present, but he will 
turn out better. His mates will kick a part 



SELF RELIANCE AND COURAGE. Ill 

of his folly out of him, and contact with the 
world will wear away the rest, leaving him a 
substantial person, while the other, having 
no inherent shape, will be moulded over and 
over to the end. He is pious or wicked, 
Republican or Democrat, liberal or bigot, 
according to the strongest influence ; the 
better reason has little weight with him. 
Without doubt, one should hold himself 
open to all good influences, but the main 
question, after all, is whether one is a mind 
to be convinced, or simply a mass to be 
moulded and attracted. Every public 
speaker knows that those who flutter about 
him with readiest assent are not the ones 
best worth convincing. I have little fear 
for the self-opinionated young man. The 
kind wise world has rods in keeping that 
will take the conceit out of him. I fear for 
him who goes with the crowd and draw T s his 
opinions and sentiments from the common 
stock. I hate to hear a young man say, 
" They all do it," — a very shabby and 
odious phrase. I hate to see a young man 
jump into the current that happens to be 
nearest, or just now most impetuous, — 
whether it be good or bad, and float with it 
for sake of the company. It were better to 



112 SELF-RELIANCE AND COURAGE. 

be borne by some stream of native feeling 
Dr personal conviction, or to stand stock still 
while the mindless crowd sweeps by. One 
should always question the prevailing craze, 
whatever it is, till he finds out if it has a 
reason for him in it. It is true that men 
move in masses, that there is a gregarious 
instinct, that great passions and purposes 
often make whole populations as one man, 
but they are movements that need to be 
carefully scrutinized. Those that have 
swept over our country have not been very 
creditable to it and have forced us to wear 
national sackcloth. I do not urge stolid 
insensibility to a prevailing enthusiasm. 
There is no objection to marching in a pro- 
cession and throwing one's cap in air, but 
it is imperative that one should know why he 
does it. Still, marching in a procession is 
not the noblest way. One admires rather 
the self-poise of Fichte who kept at his 
books while the drums of Napoleon were 
sounding in his ears. Napoleon might be a 
very grand phenomenon, as he admitted, 
but he — Fichte — was also a phenomenon 
that he felt bound to respect. As a rule, 
resist the gregarious habit ; suspect the 
crowd, and before you march in companies, 



SELF-RELIANCE AND COURAGE. 113 

of whatever sort, find out if you are march- 
ing to please yourself or the captain. There 
is a great deal of organization and associ- 
ation that has for its end the delectation of 
the leaders at the expense of subordinates. 
It is well to say ; " I will consult myself on 
this matter ; I will find out if it is agreeable 
and wise for this person that I am." 

The most heavily charged words in our 
language are those two briefest ones, Yes 
and JYo. One stands for the surrender of 
the will, the other for denial ; one for grati- 
fication, the other for character. Plutarch 
says that " the inhabitants of Asia come to 
be vassals to one only, for not having been 
able to pronounce one syllable, which is 
No." A stout A T o means a stout character ; 
the ready Yes means a weak one, gild it as 
we may. 

Practically, an attitude something like 
this is wise ; when a proposal is made, con- 
sider it probable that there is as much 
reason for refusing as ' for assenting. Will 
you go with me, drink with me, play with 
me? For such questions and all others 
have the No as convenient as the Yes. In- 
deed, when one thinks of the power of fash- 
ion and custom, it seems well to have the 



114 SELF-RELIANCE AND COURAGE. 

No somewhat readier. The vices are hardly 
more the result of appetite than of custom. 
There have been periods and communities 
in which nearly all were pure and temperate ; 
it was the custom. The thing to be feared 
for young men at present is unquestioned 
assent to what is customary in the habits of 
certain circles of their number. There is fear- 
ful power in those four little words, " They 
all do it." To resist the crowd, to hold the 
scales of right and wrong in your own hand, 
to realize that whole masses may go wrong, 
that common custom may be vile, to stand 
erect and within the inclosure of your self- 
respect, this is a prime feature of manhood. 

We must now look somewhat into the 
methods of the culture of this fine quality. 

1. Education, of course, is its essential 
condition. The ignorant herd together, 
think, feel, act alike ; but your trained man 
suspects the crowd. He feels its encroach- 
ments on his personality. He fears lest it 
may steal his decision away from him by 
brute force. He is sufficient to himself, and 
stands on self-grounded reasons and habits. 
But while this process of education that is 
to bring us into full self-reliance is going 
on, we must help it in special ways. 



SELF-RELIANCE AND COURAGE. 115 

2. Secure for yourself some regular pri- 
vacy of life. As George Herbert says, " By 
all means, use sometimes to be alone." God 
has put us each into a separate body. We 
should follow the divine hint, and see to it 
that we do not lapse again into the general 
flood of being. Many persons cannot endure 
being alone ; they are lost unless there is a 
clatter of tongues in their ears. It is not 
only weak, but it fosters weakness. The 
gregarious instinct is animal, — the sheep 
and deer living on in us ; to be alone is spir- 
itual. We can have no clear personal judg- 
ment of things till we are somewhat separate 
from them. Mr. Webster used to say of a 
difficult question : " Let me sleep on it." It 
was not merely for morning vigor, but to 
get the matter at a distance where he could 
measure its proportions and see its relations. 
So it is well at times to get away from our 
world — companions, actions, work — in or- 
der to measure it, and ascertain our relations 
to it. The moral use of the night is in the 
isolation it brings, shutting out the world 
from the senses that it may be realized in 
thought. It is very simple advice, but worth 
heeding; get some moments each day to 
yourself ; take now and then a solitary walk ; 



116 SELF-RELIANCE AND COURAGE. 

get into the silence of thick woods, or some 
other isolation as deep, and suffer the mys- 
terious sense of selfhood to steal upon you, 
as it surely will. Pythagoras insisted on an 
hour of solitude every day, to meet his own 
mind and learn what oracle it had to im- 
part. 

3. I name a delicate point when I say : 
cultivate a sense of personal dignity, have 
bounds to familiarity. Noli me tangere — 
touch me not — is the utterance of a divine 
dignity. There is a subtle law by which 
greatness and excellence create a sense of 
separation. Refined manners forbid exces- 
sive familiarity, not simply as etiquette, 
but because they contribute to selfhood. 
Hence the well-bred scrupulously respect 
each other's persons, down to the smallest 
particular. The very touch of the hand 
is instinct with delicate respect. No self-re- 
specting man will suffer his body, or mind, 
or soul to be slapped on the back. Thus 
instinct and manners unconsciously guard 
personality, and secure to it room and air 
for growth. 

4. Have no fear of unpopularity. I do 
not say, court it, but do not think much 
about it nor dread it, if it comes from the 



SELF-RELIANCE AND COURAGE. 117 

assertion of your manhood. There is no 
time when the pressure of opinion is so 
strong as in early life. It is something fear- 
ful in its power in college, and wherever else 
young persons are brought into close and 
daily contact. When a young man says of 
another, " he is popular," he says what he 
considers the best possible thing ; but if " un- 
popular," the worst. I do not deny that 
there may be some reality of truth in this ; 
but I protest against the slavishness it be- 
gets. To court popularity, to unduly dread 
the loss of it, is a denial of selfhood. It 
puts the standard of judgment in another 
instead of retaining it in yourself. You like 
the good opinion of others ; it is well : but 
first have a good opinion of yourself. It is 
well to respect others ; very true ; but first 
respect yourself. " If I do so and so, what 
will others think of me?' 1 But what will 
you think of yourself ? " If I refuse to do 
this or that, I shall lose my place in so- 
ciety." But is it worse than being turned 
out of yourself ? "I fear I shall be unpop- 
ular." Fear rather being unpopular with 
yourself, for the soul of man is a sort of 
community ; conscience, taste, self-respect, 
will, honor, judgment, — these are its citi- 



118 SELF-RELIANCE AND COURAGE. 

zens, whose suffrages are more to be desired 
than those of the whole world beside. 

To make popularity a guide is to come 
into middle life weak, and into age crip- 
pled. Self evaporates under the process, 
and when the flattering voices have died out, 
— there being no longer anything to ap- 
peal to them, — emptiness and weariness are 
all that remain. There is no old age that 
is so dreary as that of one who has lived 
on popular applause. Even religion cannot 
comfort one wdio has frittered away his self- 
hood in a steady strife after popularity ; the 
very mechanism by which it operates is 
gone. 

5. Keep steadily before you the fact that 
all true success depends at last upon your- 
self, — trite to weariness, I acknowledge, 
but a truth never to be overlooked; the 
tritest is always the truest. 

By nature we are weak ; our destiny is to 
become strong ; but we shun destiny, and 
lean to our first characteristic. Who will 
help me ? What can I depend on ? These 
are our first natural questions. But we do 
not get on the track of success until we drop 
all such questioning, and begin to realize 
that we must depend upon ourselves. By 



SELF-RELIANCE AND COURAGE. 119 

success I mean a full manhood and its in- 
herent peace. This is not possible until 
one has planted himself upon his own pow- 
ers and begun to work from them. He 
may have money, friends, chances, good for- 
tune, but that which underlies achievement 
is the ability of the man himself. If suc- 
cess comes from without, it will be fictitious, 
and will fail to make returns of happiness. 
When it flowers out of one's own energies, 
it is a vital and ministering thing. Sir 
Fowell Buxton said : " The longer I live, the 
more I am certain that the great difference 
between men, between the feeble and the 
powerful, the great and the insignificant, is 
energy, invincible determination. That qual- 
ity will do anything that can be done in 
this world ; and no talents, no circumstances, 
no opportunities, will make a two-legged 
creature a man without it." In the same 
strain, President Porter : " Energy, invin- 
cible determination, with a right motive, are 
the levers that move the world." 

It is hardly necessary to say that self is 
the only certain reliance. Money, family, 
friends, circumstances, — these come and 
go on the uncertain tide of time. The old 
Norseman was right : on neither idols nor 



120 SELF-RELIANCE AND COURAGE. 

demons, upon nothing but the strength of 
his own body and soul, would he depend. 
There must be, however, a self to depend on. 
Self is not a whim; it is not impulse, nor 
ambition, nor a flux of motives, but a sub- 
stantial person grounded in intelligence and 
will and moral sense. 

1 have not distinguished between self-reli- 
ance and courage, because they so inter- 
penetrate each other. Courage may be re- 
garded as the refinement of self-reliance, — 
the spirit-side to that of which self-reliance 
is the mind-side. When one says, Be self- 
reliant, he speaks to the will and judgment ; 
when one says, Be courageous, he addresses 
the heart and spirit. 

I would have you regard courage as nearly 
the supreme quality in character. One may 
become rich without it ; one may live a 
" good easy " life without it, but not a full 
and noble life. It is the quality by which 
one rises in the line of each faculty ; it is 
the wings that turn dull plodding into flight. 
It is courage especially that redeems life 
from the curse of commonness. 

Before leaving the subject, I would like 
to set it distinctly against a disposition grow- 
ing somewhat common, I fear, to settle 



SELF-RELIANCE AND COURAGE. 121 

down into a purposeless enjoyment of the 
present ; a life without earnestness or aspi- 
ration ; a life that aims only at " having a 
good time," — a weak and beggarly phrase. 
The essential characteristic of this life is 
that it lacks courage, — the fine high spirit 
that disdains the common life, and dares the 
future for a nobler one, " the dauntless spirit 
of resolution," Shakespeare calls it. Is 
it true that young men are regarding life 
less ideally ; that some mist bred of pros- 
perous times has come into the air, obscur- 
ing the stars, and shutting up the vision to 
what is near and palpable ? Is Thor's ham- 
mer gone from their hands ? We will hope 
that it is but a mist blinding their eyes, and 
that w T e shall again see young men drawn on 
by noble ambitions and high ideals. 

It would be most incomplete to speak of 
courage without reference to the hedged-in 
fields of life. 

The burdens of life do not always fall 
upon the mature and aged. Life often takes 
on its most grievous and binding form in 
the young. Poverty, toil, sickness, imper- 
fect education, premature responsibility, — 
many of you, I know, bear these burdens. 
" What is all this to me ? I can attempt 






: 1 have bo 

iriit on : fo: 
plan is fol 

ling yon can do. anc 
man can do. in this world, — yon 
keep up good heart. This is oourag 
deed : — to look into a dull future and 
smile : to stay bound and not chafe 

endure pain and 
cheer of health : to see hopes die oat and 
sink into brutish despair ; — ht 
bef:: fa we may pause 

d admiration.. It is so high 
that we link it with divine things, carry- 
beyond the sphere of any e art h ly 



VI. 
HEALTH 



" Health is the perfect balance between our organism, 
with all its component parts, and the outer world." — 
Amiel's Journal. 

" Though the mills of God grind slowly, 
Yet they grind exceeding small ; 
Though with patience He stands waiting, 
With exactness grinds He all." 

Longfellow. 

"A sound heart is the life of the flesh." — Solomon. 

" Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty ; 
For in my youth I never did apply 
Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood ; 
Nor did not with unbashf ul forehead woo 
The means of weakness and debility ; 
Therefore my age is as a lusty winter, 
Frosty but kindly." 

As Yoo Like It, ii. 3. 

" Now, good digestion wait on appetite, 
And health on both ! " 

Macbeth, iii. 4. 



VL 

HEALTH. 

The questions now coming into promi- 
nence pertain chiefly to social science. 
While there are political and religious 
questions that still vex and interest society, 
it is plainly to be seen that the eye of the 
world is fixed on this matter of living ; an 
art it is getting to be called. It has never 
yet seriously engaged the attention of the 
people ; it is a new subject, and not fairly 
before us. The Greeks gave great heed to 
the individual body, and the Romans secured 
personal cleanliness by their vast system of 
baths, but neither seems to have had any 
conception of the public health ; hence, with 
all their fine training and care of the body, 
their cities were subject to pestilence, and 
the average of life remained at a low point. 
The only successful attempt to connect 
hygiene with the social order was made by 
Moses, who interwove its requirements with 



126 HEALTH. 

those of religion. If this critical genera- 
tion could be diverted for a moment from 
the " mistakes of Moses " to some thought 
of his measures that were not mistakes, it 
would find itself in possession of some very 
suggestive facts. No nation has been so 
exempt from contagious and hereditary dis- 
ease as the Jews, or can show vital statis- 
tics so remarkable. There is no question 
but that this racial vitality and toughness are 
due to certain hygienic rules which Moses 
made effective and lasting by connecting 
them with religion, where, indeed, they 
belong. But, aside from the Jews (and 
in how many respects are they an excep- 
tional people), the art of health is a mod- 
ern subject. It is a singular fact that when 
men first reflectively examined themselves 
they began with their moral nature, then 
passed to their minds, which is as far as 
they have reached. Strange as it seems, 
it is the natural order, and shadows a tre- 
mendous truth, — morals first, mind next, 
body last. It is the eternal and fit order. 
Aristotle mapped out philosophy and morals 
in lines the world yet accepts in the main, 
but he did not know the difference between 
the nerves and the tendons. Rome had a 



in: alt if. 127 

sound system of jurisprudence before it had 
a physician, using only priestcraft for heal- 
ing. Cicero was the greatest lawyer the 
world has seen, but there was not a man in 
Home who could have cured him of a colic. 
The Greek was an expert dialectician when 
he was using incantations for his diseases. 
As late as when the Puritans were enun- 
ciating their lofty principles, it was gener- 
ally held that the king's touch would cure 
scrofula. Governor Winthrop, of colonial 
days, treated " small-pox and all fevers " by 
a powder made from " live toads baked in 
an earthen pot in the open air." And even 
now, in New England, where we split hairs 
in theology, and can show a philosopher for 
every square mile, at least one half of the 
treatment of disease is empirical ; that is, 
there is no ascertained relation between 
the remedy and the sickness ; it is largely 
a matter of advertisement and pretense. 
But a new day is dawning. Legislation is 
crowding the quack into the background, 
and the Board of Health is coming to the 
front. 

The old Greeks put health so high as to 
deify it. Hygeia was a goddess, young and 
smiling and beautiful. We are catching 



128 HEALTH. 

glimpses of her laughing face, and erelong 
we shall deify her. It is a part of our sin 
that we are sick ; it should be a part of our 
religion to be well. 

I say all this to young men because it is 
well that they should be awake to the 
new phases of society that are coming on. 
The special subjects to which intelligent 
men should have their eyes open are those 
pertaining to social science, the sanitary 
condition of towns and cities, all matters 
of drainage, ventilation, water-supply, and 
house-building, as well as matters pertaining 
to personal health and vigor. If any edu- 
cated young man is looking about for a 
hobby, let me suggest that here is one that 
he can ride to better purpose than any other 
now to be laid hold of. 

But the personal side of the subject is the 
one before us. Evidently, nothing can be 
more personal, more literally and strictly 
vital, than bodily health. It is the first and 
the perpetual condition of success. In any 
enterprise there are primary and secondary 
conditions affecting the result. In making 
a voyage it is necessary first of all to have a 
ship that will float and hold together till the 
port is gained ; it may spread more or less 



I IF. ALT If. 129 

canvas, be manned by few or many sailors, 
be navigated with more or less skill, be fast 
or slow, be driven by wind or steam, — 
these are secondary matters ; the ship itself, 
stanch enough to resist the waves, is the 
primary condition of the voyage. So in this 
enterprise and voyage of life, a body sound 
enough to hold together till the port of 
threescore and ten is gained comes first in 
all wise and logical consideration. Talent, 
learning, aptitude, good chances, energy, 

— these, according to the degree, affect the 
voyage, and make it smooth or rough, 
quick or slow, but they do not determine 
whether or not there shall be a voyage. I 
do not say that these are to be regarded 
lightly, or other than as large factors, but I 
affirm that without bodily health they are 
in vain so far as achievement is concerned. 
Energy, purpose, culture, enthusiasm, thrift, 

— these are the engine that propels the 
man ; but an engine requires first of all 
proper bearings, a frame stout enough to 
endure the strain of its vibrations, and to 
convert its energy into steady motion. Pro- 
fessor Huxley goes too far, however, as 
he is prone to do, when he says, " Give a 
man a good deep chest and a stomach of 



130 HEALTH. 

which he never knew the existence, and 
he must succeed in any practical career." 
For it is a fact that a vast number of very 
worthless beings fulfill these conditions ; 
" animated patent digesters," Carlyle calls 
them, whose only achievements are the con- 
sumption of food and oxygen. Race and 
brain and training have something to do 
with success in practical careers. The cap- 
tain on the bridge, the pilot at the wheel, 
and the engineer at the lever are conditions 
of the successful voyage, though the stanch- 
ness of the ship is the primary condition. 

It needs but a glance, however, at the 
men who have succeeded in any department 
to perceive that, as a rule, they have good 
bodies. I do not say that all men who have 
achieved success have lived long, or been 
free from disease, but I assert that it is im- 
possible to name a man great in any de- 
partment of life who did not possess what a 
physician would call a strong vitality. Many 
great men have died early and endured life- 
long disease, but a close physiological exam- 
ination would show that they were largely 
endowed with nervous energy and usually 
with a good muscular system. I grant the 
rare exception, as a skiff may by good luck 



HEALTH. 131 

cross the Atlantic. Nature is not blind. 
She does not put great engines into weak 
ships. There is a fallacy in the common 
remark that the mind is too great for the 
body. A great mind may overwork and 
tear in pieces even a good body, but, for the 
most part, any body properly used and su- 
perintended is strong enough to uphold and 
do the work of the mind lodged in it. Man 
is one ; no line can be drawn between the 
working functions of body and mind. A 
part of all mental action is also physical 
action. Will is also a matter of nerves, 
energy is graduated by the blood, and the 
finest thought stands with one foot upon 
tissue of brain. By its very definition high 
thought and large achievement imply a 
strong physical basis. Burns died at thirty- 
seven, and Byron at thirty-six, both of dissi- 
pation, but they had superb bodies, and, at 
first, exuberant health. Raphael and Robert- 
son died at the same age with Burns, — one 
of malarial fever, and the other from over- 
work and worry, — neither from physical 
necessity. Dr. Bushnell early induced con- 
sumption by excessive toil, but lived toiling 
on to seventy. When great men die early, 
it is almost always due either to abuse, or to 



132 HEALTH. 

something like an accident, for some diseases 
bear no relation to physical constitution. 
But great men do not die early. Dr. Dun- 
glison says that the average longevity of the 
most eminent philosophers, naturalists, ar- 
tists, jurists, physicians, musical composers, 
scholars, and authors, including poets, who 
are not thought to be long-lived, is sixty- 
six years, — more than double the average 
length of human life. Such facts are usu- 
ally regarded as showing that intellectual 
pursuits are favorable to longevity, but they 
rather show that great men have good bod- 
ies. A fine engine is favorable to the speed 
and safety of the voyage, but quite as much 
depends upon the build of the vessel, and 
even more upon how both are handled. 

If we look over the men who are consid- 
ered successful in their departments, — pro- 
fessional, manufacturing, commercial, finan- 
cial, — we shall find with rare exception 
that they have certain physical characteris- 
tics which are the primary conditions of a 
strong body and sound health. They mea- 
sure large around the chest ; they have depth 
of lung and good stomachs ; their muscular 
system is large and strong, or, if small, it 
is fine in fibre and well knit ; they have a 



HEALTH. 133 

larger brain surface than the average, and 
are without hereditary disease that early 
impairs the chief functions. I do not say 
that every man who has these characteris- 
tics achieves distinction, but that no man 
achieves any considerable success who is 
without them. There will always be found 
a certain proportion of Carlyle's " animated 
patent digesters " with a perfect physical 
make-up, but lacking in ways that do not 
concern us here. 

You will also find that the measure of 
success is usually determined by the manner 
in which the owner of this well-endowed 
body treats it. If the functional power of 
lungs, or stomach, or nerves, is broken down 
— often one and the same process — he 
ceases in exact ratio to be an achiever. His 
plans may go on of themselves, but the fresh 
creative energy is graduated by his bodily 
condition. Force no longer goes into his 
schemes, if it has passed out of his body. 

Your physically weak man may get 
through life decently and honorably, but he 
seldom gets to be the head of anything, fore- 
man, or superintendent, or agent, or presi- 
dent ; he never climbs, he never gets out of 
the crowd. 



134 HEALTH. 

I do not expect any denial or doubt on 
these points, and have set them down only 
to get you to thinking on the subject. I 
fear, however, lest a nearly universal illu- 
sion may break its force. The first boast of 
childhood reaches a long way into manhood. 
However thin of limb and narrow of chest, 
the young man is always strong. The glory 
that men have ever put upon physical 
strength, and our instinctive sense of its 
excellence, so press upon us that we hate to 
confess our lack of it. Hence my readers 
may be saying, " This is not for me, but for 
the weakly ones," who are not anywhere to 
be found. Disenchantment is painful, but, 
in truth, not every young man is a Hercules. 
The practical harm of this illusion is that 
we presume upon it, and infer that we can 
endure any strain we may lay upon our- 
selves. 

But what of athleticism? Mr. Hughes, 
its early apostle, tells us that it has come to 
be overpraised and overvalued. It is un- 
doubtedly a fine thing, but it has led to an 
oversight of the wiser side of the matter, 
namely, the preservation and care of the 
health, which is not entirely the same thine: 
as physical strength. It has also reached a 



II I.ALT II. 135 

phase where the element of sport and nat- 
ural exhilaration is taken out of it. They 
tell us that our national vice is excess, — 
that we lack the sense of proportion. Base- 
ball is no longer a minister of health when 
a reporter sits by, and the cheers or jeers 
of stake-holders follow the player around 
the field. It is unfortunate that this game, 
which Robert Collyer calls " the healthiest 
and handsomest ever played," has been 
pushed to such a feverish and wild excess 
by fierce competition and accessories of gam- 
bling. A game loses its value to health 
when its excitement is drawn from any other 
source than from the game itself. Stakes 
mean something more than healthful ex- 
hilaration. Competitive walking and row- 
ing are even more objectionable. They not 
only engender positive disease, but the whole 
atmosphere, moral and social, is adverse to 
health. Hygeia does not welcome to her 
shrine the heroes of the bat and oar and 
ring. These sports may be used health- 
wise, but as soon as they involve the exer- 
tion called out by great public competition 
and the excitement of wager, they no longer 
minister to health. Unfortunately the tem- 
per of the age does not favor moderation. 



136 HEALTH. 

The element of play seems lost, and a hard 
vulgar pride of superiority has taken its 
place. The self -sparkling water of natural 
play is not enough, but needs some devil' s- 
powder of wager and newspaper report. 

The votaries of athleticism run into 
another mistake by giving their interest to 
one thing ; they can strike so heavy a blow, 
lift such a weight, walk so far ; they are 
strongest in wrist, or leg, or loins. 

But special superiority does not consti- 
tute health. Nothing seems finer physically 
than the trained pugilist, but it is well 
understood that he dies early, and commonly 
of consumption. Health is something dif- 
ferent from strength ; it is universal good 
condition ; it is general vigor ; it is that 
state of body in which every function works 
well. 

Going a little further in the way of crit- 
icism, too much value is attached to mus- 
cular strength, and too little to nervous en- 
ergy. In some respects identical, they still 
represent distinct bodily forces. One is the 
power that does, the other endures; one 
strikes a single titanic blow, the other never 
tires ; one wins a wager, the other wins the 
prizes of life. Physical strength does not 



HEALTH. 137 

imply nervous energy, and though nervous 
energy implies a good body, it does not re- 
quire great physieal strength. Mr. Evarts 
is slender to frailness, but he has a nervous 
system that enables him to endure a harder 
and longer mental strain than any other 
lawyer at the bar of New York. 

The gymnasiums at Yale and Amherst 
and Williams are quite necessary, and are 
justified by their results, but West Rock and 
Holyoke and Greylock are better. Climbing 
a ladder develops physical strength, climb- 
ing a mountain feeds nervous energy. Take 
two students ; one can out-jump, out-climb, 
out-lift his class ; the other, having slight 
ambitions of this sort, gets upon the hills at 
every chance, " cutting " a recitation now and 
then in the ardor of his long rambles ; at the 
end of twenty years it will be found that the 
latter is the healthier man. 

In looking at men of marked attainment, 
we almost invariably find certain physical 
traits, but a closer look reveals also this 
subtler quality of nerve force or vitality. It 
is this that makes the man what he is as a 
working power. Vitality is the measure of 
success. What vitality is we do not know. 
We only know that its medium is the ner- 



138 HEALTH. 

vous system, and that it is fed and measure^ 
by the assimilation of food and air. It ha? 
a mysterious side, turned away from all po* 
sibility of analysis, like the other side of the 
moon. We only know that while it is not 
nerve, nor oxygen, nor food, it is a force that 
\Torks through them. It may be a spiritual 
thing, yet something that is graduated by 
its material relations. But, whatever it is, 
its degree or amount is determined by tli| 
physical and nervous condition, as the powe* 
of a telescope is determined by the sizi 
of its aperture. Nourish and strengthen 
your muscles and nerves and you increase 
your vitality, but it is the vitality that does 
the work, not the muscles or nerves. The 
greatest amount of vitality, — this is your 
requirement, young men ! It is a trifling 
matter whether or not you can row, or bat, 
or jump to the admiration of a crowd and of 
yourself ; but it is a matter of the greatest 
moment that you so use your body and 
regulate your life that you shall have your 
largest possible allowance of this mysterious 
thing called nerve-force, or vitality. 

I am eager, however, to get the subject 
into a finer region of appeal. The posses* 
sion of health should be a matter of hearty, 



II F.ALT II. 139 

honest pride. I would have one hold him- 
self ashamed who has not a man's share of 
manly vitality. If Providence denies it, it 
must be patiently endured. If one has in- 
herited feebleness, let him blush for his 
ancestors. If one lacks it through personal 
fault, he must confess himself not only a 
guilty sinner, but guilty of a shameful sin. 
Bodily weakness minimizes a man ; it is a 
subtraction, a derogation, a maiming. It 
puts one below the average, makes one frac- 
tional, not a full counter in the game of life, 
small change to be disregarded in social esti- 
mates. 

Despite the revival of athleticism and the 
spread of hygienic knowledge, the feeble 
young man is still to be seen, and not rarely ; 
— languid, listless, hesitating, forceless, thin- 
limbed, narrow-chested, uncertain, tremu- 
lous, the very thought of his conducting a 
business a jest, though often he can drink 
and smoke and sit up of nights most admi- 
rably. I would like to reproduce on these 
pages Lockhart's picture of Christopher 
North, simply to show what a superb thing 
a full vitality is; the grandest physique 
of any man of his century, robust, athletic, 
broad across the back, firm set upon his 



140 HEALTH. 

limbs; in complexion a genuine Goth, with 
hair of true Sicambrian yellow falling about 
his shoulders in waving locks, his eyes of the 
lightest yet clearest blue, and blood flowing 
in his cheek with as firm a fervor as it did 
in his ancestral Teutons, who rushed to bat- 
tle with laughter. De Quincey says that 
when Wilson was spending a vacation in 
the Highlands he would often run for hours 
over the hills, bareheaded, his long yellow 
hair streaming behind him, stretching out 
his hands and shouting aloud in simple 
exultation of life. There is a man for you 
— healthy, strong, vital! 

To possess health in this fashion, to stand 
under the orderly heavens and amidst the 
harmonies of nature, light, air, earth, wa- 
ter, and growing things all working in 
perfect unison, and feel that the harmony 
reaches to you ; to feel that nature's laws 
are fulfilled in you as well as in tree, and 
planet, and ocean, — this is to share in the 
joy that underlies nature and is heard in 
her unvoiced hymn. Nor is it a lesser joy 
to stand before life with a consciousness 
of strength equal to its emergencies. The 
most exquisite feeling possible to man is the 
sense of ability to overcome obstacles ; to 



Ill: ALT IT. 141 

face a wall and know that you can beat 
your way through it ; to undertake an enter- 
prise " of pith and moment " and know that 
you can carry it through to success ; to 
come under an inevitable burden and know 
that you can stand erect. Facing life in 
this way is often regarded as a matter of 
mere spirit ; but woe be to the man of spirit 
who undertakes great things without a well- 
dowered body ; a dash, a flutter of un- 
strung nerves, ending in collapse, is all there 
is to relate. 

Carlyle, in that wondrous wise talk of 
his to the students at Edinburgh, said : 
" Finally, I have one advice to give you, 
which is practically of very great impor- 
tance. You are to consider throughout, 
much more than is done at present, and 
what would have been a very great thing 
for me if I had been able to consider, that 
health is a thing to be attended to contin- 
ually ; that you are to regard that as the 
very highest of all temporal things for you. 
There is no kind of achievement you could 
make in the world that is equal to perfect 
health. What to it are nuggets or mil- 
lions?" Carlyle here voices the common 
feeling of overwhelming, irreparable mis- 



142 HEALTH. 

take that vast numbers are called to un- 
dergo. Other mistakes may be overcome. 
Mind and moral nature are subject to the 
will, but a weakened body, who can correct 
that ? There are for it no repentances and 
forgivings, but only the stern order of the 
material world, reaping after the sowing. 
No pangs of physical suffering would have 
wrung such words from Carlyle, but the 
fact that he had been crippled in his work, 
that the clearness of his vision had been 
dimmed, and that a hue not natural to him- 
self — a hue partial, distempered, morose — 
was spread over all that he had done. It is 
late before we learn that the whole of man 
goes into his work. Poet, or orator, or phi- 
losopher, or man of business, his body fol- 
lows him, and holds the pen, and shapes the 
thought, and imparts its quality to all that 
he does or says. An impaired vitality of 
body implies an element of weakness in the 
undertaking to the end, and no heroism of 
spirit, or strength of will, or industry can 
eliminate it. 

If this discussion has had sufficient force 
to excite an interest, it may lead to the 
definite question, How shall we nourish this 
vitality and health which Carlyle calls " the 



HEALTH. 143 

highest of all temporal things " ? I hesi- 
tate to enter this field, since no writer or 
speaker likes to antagonize his audience. 
Besides, the way is somewhat worn, and you 
have been driven or dragged over it so often, 
and sometimes in so repulsive ways, that I 
hesitate to class myself with your Mentors 
on this subject. Still, trusting to a good 
understanding hitherto, I push on. 

I think the best observers agree that bod- 
ily vigor is a matter of preservation and 
steady care, rather than of special training. 
That is, God has given most of us health ; 
the main thing is not to waste it. It is not 
something to be achieved, but something to 
be retained. If the practical wisdom of the 
matter were put into one phrase, I think it 
would be something like this : Avoid what- 
ever tends to lessen vitality. 

What are the things which do this? 

1. It would be an unscientific treatment 
of the subject, if I did not lay heavy em- 
phasis upon tobacco as it is commonly used. 

As in the chapter on Thrift so here I 
speak of the use of tobacco in the single 
light of the subject in hand. There seem 
to me three main objections to its use. It 
is an unthrifty habit ; it is tyrannical, and so 



144 HEALTH. 

spreads out into the field of morals, where 
we will not follow it ; and it is injurious to 
health. If these three points seem to you to 
cover nearly the whole sphere, I shall not 
deny it. Thrift, morals, health, — they are 
indeed somewhat broad ! 

Persons of certain temperament, and of 
rough out-of-door employment, may be ex- 
ceptions to the extent that the injury is not 
perceptible. But taking life as we have it, 
with a lessening of the phlegmatic tempera- 
ment and a steady increase of the nervous 
temperament induced by city life and indoor 
occupation, — the tobacco habit must be set 
down as injurious. It might not be so to 
any great degree if its use did not call into 
play that subtle law of increase which ren- 
ders moderation a difficult thing to secure. 
Logically, there can hardly be any moder- 
ation in a habit so related to the will, for 
the habit itself is one of indulgence, a field 
from which the will is shut out ; hence the 
only limit, ordinarily, is that imposed by 
satiety ; the smoker stops when he does not 
care to smoke longer. 

But there are physiological reasons why 
tobacco creates an increasing appetite. It 
is a nerve-stimulant ; stimulated nerves mean 



in alt ii. 145 

at last irritated nerves, and irritated nerves 
clamor forever. And being unnaturally ir- 
ritated and stung into undue action they 
lose their force, which is a loss of vitality. 
Any physician will tell you that tobacco is 
a debilitant ; that it weakens the nerve cen- 
tres ; that it lessens vitality ; that it subtracts 
from energy ; that it renders one thus weak- 
ened more liable to disease ; that it engen- 
ders certain ailments, and tends to induce a 
certain condition the most remote from that 
which any man could wish. It is pleasant 
to be able to state here that the use of to- 
bacco is steadily decreasing at Yale and 
Harvard, — a result due to athleticism and 
the influence of the able men, Dr. Seaver 
and Dr. Sargent, who have charge of the 
physical condition of the students. 

2. The drinking habit is to be set down 
as a great waster of vitality. The moderate 
use of alcohol is a cheat. It is opposed in 
its very nature to moderation ; morally and 
physiologically it is keyed to the opposite. 
The exceptions are the decoys without which 
the evil would bag no game. But the phy- 
siologists are practically agreed that even a 
moderate use of alcohol is injurious to vital- 
ity. Dr. Kichardson, of London, says : " It 



140 HEALTH. 

is the duty of my profession to show, as it 
can show to the most perfect demonstration, 
that alcohol is no necessity of man ; that it 
is out of place when used for any other than 
a medical, chemical, or artistic purpose : that 
it is no food ; that it is the most insidious 
destroyer of health, happiness, and life." He 
again : ** Among the chief sources of 
the reduction of vitality to the low figure at 
which it stands, alcohol stands first : it kills 
in the present, it impairs the vital powers in 
the succeeding generations." M If England 
were redeemed from i: "the 

vitality of the nation would rise one third in 
its value." But the drinking habit in this 
dry. nerve-exciting climate of ours is far 
more injurious than it is in England. If it 
there reduces vitality a third in value, what 
must it do here ? The simple fact for a ra- 
tional being to consider and govern himself 
© © 

by is that every time he drinks a glass of 
liquor, whatever its per cent, of alcohol, he 
lessejis his vitality ; he has just so much less 
power to work with, less ability to endure, 
less nervous force for fine efforts, less tough- 
ness to put against difficulties, less time to 
live. What ! if it be only beer ? Yes ! the 
verdict of science is absolute and final. 



HEALTH. 147 

Does any one sins: the praises of wine ? 
_ nerous heart has a chord that vi- 
brates to that note ; but, after all. the wine 
better and more musical. Does 
any one speak of usage ? I protest by all 
the glories of humanity against a fashion 
that overrides the welfare of humanity. 

me to points less emphatic, also less 
familiar as yet. but soon to engage practical 
attention. It is a little more than a hun- 
dred years since Priestley discovered oxygen, 
and so ran upon the fact that air robbed of 
it by breathing contains dangerous proper- 
truth that has not yet reached gen- 
eral recognition. Sextons and mill-build- 
ers. and the entire indoor world, practically 
hold that one can live equally well anywhere 
Le of a vacuum. Oxygen is life, the 
gas it liberates is death. When you breathe 
air deficient in one and over-laden with the 
other you reduce vitality, and pave the way 
for die The melancholy feature of mill 

life — now coming almost into supremacy 
in numbers — is not low wages, but scant 
oxygen. An English physician says that 
u health is a thing absolutely unknown 
among English factory operatives/' 

In this respect many are shut off from 



148 HEALTH. 

any choice. I can only say, value every 
breath of pure air you can get, work in it 
if possible, sleep in it without fail, hesitate 
to stay where it is not, and whenever it is 
possible drink it in as it blows over sum- 
mits of hills, and through cool woods. 

4. Lack of sleep is a great waster of 
vitality. 

Carlyle quotes the French financier with 
a sigh : " Why is there no sleep to be sold ? 
Sleep was not in the market at any price." 
Its lack is the tragical feature of broken 
health. " Chief nourisher in life's feast," 
the omniscient poet calls it. Never except 
for the most imperative reason should one 
break in upon that sacred process for which 
the sun withdraws itself and silence broods 
over the hemisphere. Its hours cannot be 
safely changed. Two young men, equally 
strong, work side by side ; one sleeps early 
and long, the other retires late and irregu- 
larly. Apparently they get on equally well, 
but the physician will tell you that one is 
drawing on his stock of vitality, while the 
other keeps it full ; in time one is bankrupt 
in health, the other rich. 

Sleep is to be regarded as a divine thing ; 
it is akin to creation. One should never 



HEALTH. 149 

pass into it without adoration ; it is a return 
into the hands of God to be new-made, the 
tire and age of the day to be taken out, and 
freshness and youth wrought in. 

'* Come, blessed barrier between day and day ; 

Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health ! " 

Or, with Allingham : — 

"Sleep is like death, and after sleep 

The world seems new begun ; 
While thoughts stand luminous and firm, 

Like statues in the sun ; 
Refreshed from supersensuous founts, 
The soul to clearer vision mounts." 

The physiologist cannot explain it ; all he 
knows is that, in some way, it renews vital- 
ity. To tamper with it, to defraud it, to 
take it fitfully, is to throw away life itself. 
It is a mistake to devote the hours up to 
midnight to work, or pleasure, or books. It 
may be an innocent thing to dance at the 
right time and place, and in the right way 
and company, but to dance all night is to 
rob yourself of your richest treasure. Com- 
pare in any matter requiring nerve and head 
one who has slept all night with one who 
has spent a sleepless night, and you will get 
an illuminating verdict on the value of 
sleep. 

Business men who are bearing the heavv 



150 HEALTH. 

cares of the day will assent when I say that 
the whole life, hygienically, should be or- 
dered with regard to sleep. If one can sleep 
he can endure anything, he is every day a 
new man. Food, exercise, pleasures, hours, 
everything should be subordinated to secur- 
ing sleep. No revival of troubles, no vexing 
questions should precede it. It should be as 
regular as the stars, and like the night itself 
in its solemn peacef ulness. 

5. I will only name sound digestion as a 
fundamental element in vitality, it being so 
well understood. The deadly effects of fry- 
ing-pan and pastry are no longer secrets. 
The hygienists are steadily telling us in the 
newspapers that we eat too much and too 
fast, that the national cooking is bad, that 
narcotics and stimulants and foul air and in- 
dolence and hurry and anxiety are foes of 
digestion. Professor Huxley encounters no 
denial when he makes a good stomach a con- 
dition of success in any practical career. 

6. Nor will you expect me to more than 
name those requirements of health and of 
self-respect as well, — the frequent bath, 
and that scrupulous care of the body which 
is next to godliness. 

7. There are hindrances to a strong vi« 



HEALTH. 151 

tality that are inseparable from life as it 
comes to most of us. Our working classes 
labor harder and longer than any other in 
the world, our business men have longer 
hours, our professional men give themselves 
less rest. There is a danger from over-work 
not to be forgotten ; it is already being felt 
in a rapid increase of nervous diseases with 
their irresistible tendency to the use of nar- 
cotics and stimulants, and a ready suscepti- 
bility to malarial influences. Our climate 
does not admit of so hard labor as that of 
England, but the English operative works 
but five and a half days to our six, and the 
professional and business man begins late 
and stops early, making a sort of Sabbath 
of his evening. 

8. Nothing more surely cuts away and 
undermines the vital forces than worry and 
anxiety, however caused. Happily, trouble 
is not native nor lasting to youth — touching 
it but lightly : — 

11 As night to him that sitting on a hill 

Sees the midsummer, midnight, Norway sun 
Set into sunrise." 

But as we descend from its glorious heights 
we encounter the inevitable cares and anxi- 
eties that are involved in the increased re- 



152 HEALTH. 

lations of life. It is a large part of what 
Sir Thomas Browne calls "the militia of 
life " to see to it that these cares do not 
break up the order either of soul or body. 
The practical lesson here is both religious 
and prudential. It says, live carefully, 
avoid needless entanglements, don't com- 
promise yourself, keep a good conscience, 
have nothing in your life that requires con- 
cealment. Burdens and cares a man must 
have, but a true and simple habit of life, 
held to loftily and devoutly, wity keep them 
from harming body or soul. 

9. My last suggestion will, perhaps, have 
more novelty than any other before named. 
The passions of anger, hatred, grief, and 
fear are usually considered as belonging to 
morals, but Dr. Kichardson puts them 
among the influences most destructive of 
vitality. "The strongest," he says, "can- 
not afford to indulge in them. ,, Shake- 
speare, whom nothing escapes, speaks of 
envy as " lean-faced.' ' 

" Heat not a furnace for your foes so hot 
That it do singe yourself." 

When these great passions burn, the oil 
of life is rapidly spent. Hence divine wis- 
dom forbids hatred and anger, and divine 



HEALTH. 153 

love heals our griefs and fears as hurtful 
alike to body and soul. 

I cannot better end these suggestions 
than by quoting some words of Bacon, 
whose wisdom seems to cover every subject 
he touches. As if speaking to young men, 
he says : " It is a safer conclusion to say, 
4 This agreeth not well with me, therefore I 
will not continue it,' than this : ' I find no 
offense (or hurt) of this, therefore I may 
use it ; ' — that is, don't wait till you are 
hurt by a habit before giving it up, but find 
out its ordinary tendency, and act accord- 
ingly." 



vn. 

BEADING. 



" Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe 
and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, 
but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, 
others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and 
digested." — Bacon. 

" Bring with thee the books." — St. Paul. 

" These young obscure years ought to be increasingly 
employed in gaining a knowledge of things worth know- 
ing ; especially of heroic human souls worth knowing." — 
Carlyle. 

" 'T would be endless to tell you the things that he knew, 
All separate facts, undeniably true, 
But with him or each other they 'd nothing to do ; 
No power of combining, arranging, discerning, 
Digested the masses he learned into learning." 

A Fable for Critics. 

" No man can read with profit that which he cannot 
learn to read with pleasure." — President Porter. 

" It is wholesome and bracing for the mind, to have its 
faculties kept on the stretch. It is like the effect of a 
walk in Switzerland upon the body. Reading an essay 
of Bacon's, for instance, or a chapter of Aristotle or of 
Butler, if it be well and thoughtfully read, is much like 
climbing up a hill, and may do one the same sort of 
good." — Guesses at Truth. 



vn. 

READING. 

The universal distribution of books has 
given rise to a new and distinct ambition, 
which may be described as a desire for intel- 
lectuality. To be intellectual, or to be re- 
garded as such, is certainly among the am- 
bitions of modern society. The logic of it 
is plain ; men do not like to be out of rela- 
tion to great facts. The prominent figure, 
the strong party, the new discovery, fixes 
their attention and enlists their sympathies. 
Napoleon, simply by his outstanding great- 
ness as a phenomenon, commands a homage 
from which our judgment dissents. The 
dignity and sense of reality that Milton 
throws about Satan has secured for him 
what may even be called respect. 

Books are the great fact of modern civili- 
zation, its finest expression and summation. 
They stand for intellect ; their source, their 
method, their reception is in the intellect. 



158 READING. 

Thus, the whole atmosphere about them 
being intellectual, they have come to stand 
for the thing itself, and to imply its posses- 
sion on the part of all concerned with them. 
It seems an incongruity when an ignorant 
person sells us a book. No one can afford 
to ignore this great latter-day fact. You 
will need to drop somewhat below the aver- 
age of our American culture before you will 
find one who does not claim something of 
the spirit that surrounds books ; very ill- 
founded the claim may be, but very devoutly 
entertained. There is almost no conception 
of intellectuality apart from them ; to know 
them is to be intellectual. 

There may be some crudeness and mis- 
apprehension in this, but, on the whole, it is 
praiseworthy. It marks the full transition 
from animal to man. It points the way to 
better things, for when the masses actually 
think, all else of which the moralist dreams 
and for which the saint prays will follow. 
Thought is the crucible in which all things 
are resolved and separated to their true is- 
sues. 

What shall I read ? Such is the ques- 
tion everywhere put by this new ambition. 
The question does not seem to me a difficult 



READING. 159 

one, like that of amusements, but, on the 
contrary, too easy to admit of much dis- 
cussion. It is as though we stood in an 
orchard laden with fruit ; it is not a matter 
of choice, but of falling-to, and taking the 
best. The worm-eaten, the wind-blasted, 
the rotten, will of course be passed by. 

I am not sure that any rule is of very 
much use save one, and that shall be nega- 
tive ; namely, read no books but the best. 
This negative rule covers a vast field. The 
bad or indifferent books are more than the 
good; and reading, of course, bears the 
same proportion. A book once represented 
the inspiration and thought of its author; 
to-day it represents a price paid. The 
change and perversion is immense. The 
standard and spirit of literature are not 
drawn from genius and intelligence, but 
from the tastes and conceptions of the 
masses, — an inversion which deserves un- 
ending protest. When the author abdi- 
cates in favor of the reader there is an end 
of literature. Even in children's books 
there is no need of descent. A child re- 
quires only plainness, never a dropping 
down. The great masterpieces in this lit- 
erature : " Robinson Crusoe ; " Hans Ander- 



160 READING. 

sen's Stories, and those of our own Ander- 
sen, Horace Scudder ; " Paul and Virginia ; " 
" Arabian Nights ; " Charles Kingsley's 
"Greek Heroes" and "Water Babies;" 
Lamb's " Tales from Shakespeare ; " appeal 
equally to young and old ; one never sus- 
pects in them that the author has left his 
highest plane. To make this distinction 
between the legitimate and the false is diffi- 
cult until one's taste and judgment are es- 
tablished. But there are certain rules that 
come near to the matter. 

1. Resolutely avoid the immoral litera- 
ture that floods the news-stall. One who 
reads in this direction reads himself into 
moral chaos and darkness ; it is an unknow- 
ing, uneducating process. There is some- 
thing peculiarly destructive in that know- 
ledge of evil which comes through a book 
or picture. The direct sight and sound 
of evil do not so wound and blast as does 
that apprehension of it gained by reading. 
It thus seems to get into the mind ; it en- 
trenches itself in the imagination, where it 
stays and multiplies itself, breeding through 
the fancy, turning these noblest faculties 
into ministers of perdition. 

2. There is a class of periodicals, weekly 



READING. 161 

and monthly, of a higher grade, printed in 
heavy type and with coarse, startling illus- 
trations, and filled with stories, concerning 
which it is hard to determine whether the 
paper, the type, the illustrations, or the mat- 
ter is the shabbiest ; all wear the broadest 
badge of vulgarity. They are not often im- 
moral, but they lack absolutely and utterly 
every positive element of true literature. 
Their effect might be described as mental 
obliteration. For reading may be an un- 
educating process, and may lead to a rever- 
sal of this intellectuality of which we spoke. 
When the mind is steadily addressed in a 
low and untrue way, when it is constantly 
excited by false emotions and set to acting 
in unreasonable ways, it loses its power to 
guide and serve ; flabby, perhaps, is the best 
word to describe the condition into which it 
comes. 

I say, not only do not read this rubbish, 
but in preference read nothing. The mind 
will be stronger if left to itself and to the 
unlettered literature of sky and field and 
forest, or even street where, at least, you 
will see true men and women, and real 
transactions. Rather than spend your Sun- 
days with these sheets, go among the hills. 



162 BEADING. 

and hear what the winds and the birds have 
to say. 

3. There is a class of books known as 
the novels of the day ; novels of adventure, 
of society, and of high-wrought passion. 
As a rule, they are to be avoided on the 
same ground that you decline to buy a fair- 
looking garment when you have reason to 
believe that its wool is shoddy and its silk 
is cotton. It is true that a great novel may 
contain exciting adventure ; in itself there 
is no harm in thrilling events, for all fact 
runs off into surprise. A great novel may 
depict society, and it is always animated by 
a great passion, but it will be true in each 
of these respects. Such books are rare ; 
you may count their authors on your two 
hands. Nothing can make a book worth 
reading in which the delineation of motives 
and conduct is false to reality and nature. 
If the adventure is excessive, if the delinea- 
tion of society consists of human frailty and 
is set in any other light than that of con- 
demnation, if the exceptional is set forth as 
common, if the sentiment is morbid, if the 
frailties of genius are made to override the 
homely, every-day virtues, if exceptions are 
made in favor of immorality, if the whims 






READING. 163 

of the author are set down as laws of 
conduct, — let all such books go unread. 
Among many good reasons, the main one is 
that these characteristics have a common 
root of untruth, while the first and absolute 
requisite of a book is that it shall be true. 
Nothing but truth can feed the mind, as 
nothing else can please it, if it is a healthy 
mind. It is truth which makes the essential 
greatness of a book, — holding the mirror 
up to nature, getting the reality of things 
before the reader. Great masses of books, 
nearly all the novels of the day, yield be- 
fore this fundamental criticism. They have 
one or both of two characteristics ; the plot 
turns upon a restlessness under, or violation 
of marriage ; or the tone is pessimistic, that 
is, treating evil as the law of society. Occa- 
sionally a sweet, healthy novel slips from 
the press, like " Lorna Doone," but the great 
mass are such as I have described. These 
books do not hold the mirror up to nature, 
nor to society, nor to the real currents of 
human thought ; they mirror the distorted 
notions of very conceited persons of very 
shabby principles, who find it easier to write 
down their own vaporings than to study na- 
ture and society. 



164 HEADING. 

It is not pleasant to know that a vast 
number of persons read little else but such 
books as these. The frequent domestic tra- 
gedy, the discontent, the sentimentality, and 
common hysterical habit of thought and 
manners, are largely due to this overwrought 
and shallow literature. It not only weakens 
the fibre of the mind, but it induces a low 
standard of taste in everything else — amuse- 
ments, society, religion. 

But, you ask, how shall we know the good 
books from the bad? Just as you distin- 
guish between persons, by reputation and 
acquaintance. You are cautious in regard 
to your company ; you make no acquaintance 
except on the strength of a proper introduc- 
tion or general reputation. Use the same 
rule with books. There is no necessity for 
reading the last new novel. If you have 
any secret vanity in literary things, to which 
I do not object, let me say (in a whisper) 
that the proper thing is not to read the last 
new book ; if you are tempted to do so, 
avoid mention of it unless you would be 
thought a. parvenu in these high realms. If 
your friend who " reads all the new books" 
is patronizingly surprised that you have not 
seen Zola's or Ouida's last, inquire how long 



READING. 165 

since he has read " Henry Esmond," and the 
blush will be on the other cheek. An author 
soon gets a reputation ; go by it and make 
few ventures among the unknown. One 
should find his way in the literary world 
as he learns geography, — by maps and not 
by first-hand explorations. Emerson tells us 
to wait a year before reading a new book ; 
and Lowell in the " Fable for Critics : " 

" Reading 1 new books is like eating - new bread, 
One can bear it at first, but by gradual steps he 
Is brought to death's door of a mental dyspepsy." 

What of newspapers and magazines? 
Read the former as a matter of business and 
necessity, but expect little advantage from 
them save as they report to you current 
events. I must know what is going on in 
the world ; I buy the newspaper to tell me, 
and for no other reason. If the keen-eyed 
editor puts a few of the events together, and 
asserts that they point in this or that direc- 
tion, I thank him, but keep a lookout for 
myself. I ask of him chiefly facts, events, 
the daily history of the globe. The exces- 
sive reading of newspapers tends to men- 
tal dissipation instead of mental discipline. 
What can be worse for the mind than to 
think of forty things in ten minutes ? It is 



166 READING. 

commonly understood that the great editors 
pursue a definite course of contiuuous study 
for the sake of mental integrity, and afl ■ 
defense against the dissipation of their daily 
work. 

Magazines, the monthlies and quarterlies, 
fall into a different category. They often 
contain solid and thorough pieces of thought 
and information, and are the channels of 
much of the best current literature. But 
beware of the magazine story, except it be 
from a master. 

And what of the novel ? Almost the only 
limits left about novel - reading are those 
of likes and dislikes ; rules and standards 
everywhere else, but none here. Highly 
moral people read immoral books ; refined 
people read vulgar ones ; fastidious people 
welcome to their minds characters whom 
they would turn out of their parlors. Chil- 
dren go to school for study and come home 
to the serial story, a veritable PenelopeV 
web process. The whole matter is at loose 
ends, and needs to be brought under some 
law of reason and consistency. 

As a first step in this direction, I would 
suggest that you read but few novels, and 
with careful selection, and at decided inter- 
vals of time. 



READING. 167 

Have two objects in view, varying- them 
according to the end, namely, recreation and 
knowledge of life. 

Every hard worker is now and then en- 
titled to a holiday. Treat yourself to a 
novel as you take a pleasure trip, and, be- 
cause you do it rarely, let it be a good one. 
We have a friend who prays that his life 
may be spared till he has read all of the 
Waverleys ; for he will not dull his interest 
in one by too soon taking up another. Hav- 
ing selected your novel as carefully as you 
would choose a friend, give yourself up to 
it ; lend to its fancy the wings of your own 
imagination ; revel in it without restraint ; 
drink its wine ; keep step with its passion ; 
float on its tide, whether it glides serenely 
to happy ends, or sweeps dark and tumul- 
tuous to tragic destinies. 

Such reading is not only a fine recreation, 
but of highest value, especially to business 
men. It cultivates what the American lacks 
by nature, and doubly lacks through social 
atmosphere, namely, sentiment ; by which I 
mean responsiveness to the higher and finer 
truths. 

But the main use of the novel is to un- 
fold character and society ; this is its voca- 



168 READING. 

tion, — to depict life. It may be historical, 
domestic, social, psychological, political, or 
religious, but its theme is life. Its value 
consists in the fidelity of the picture and 
the literary charm with which it is invested. 
When I read a novel of Thackeray, my 
knowledge of man is increased. I get 
broader views of humanity. I see what a 
wide, deep, complex thing life is. Hence I 
will read no novels but the best, since they 
alone can show me life as it is ; and above 
all things I must not think of life falsely. 
We might live virtuously while holding that 
the world is flat, but not if we were deceived 
as to the shape and proportions of man. 
Ptolemaic astronomy were better than un- 
natural fiction. 

If you ask who these best novelists are, 
I will venture to name those who, at least, 
head the column. Pardon the dry list : 
Scott, Thackeray, Hawthorne, George Eliot, 
Cooper, Dickens, Charles Kingsley, Mrs. 
Stowe, MacDonald, Howells, Blackmore, 
Besant, George Meredith, George W. Cable, 
Black, Trollope. Of foreign authors I will 
name only Victor Hugo, as easily greatest 
and best. 

There are many good novels by other 



READING. 169 

authors, correct in presentation, sound in 
sentiment, instructive, entertaining. I do 
not say, Don't read them ; but consider the 
matter well. I once asked one of our widest 
and most thorough readers of English lit- 
erature, Mr. James T. Fields, if he had 
read a certain popular novel. He replied, 
" I only read the saints." I wondered why 
I had read it, when I, too, might have read 
the saints. 

But the novel is the holiday of literature ; 
let us come down to its every-day features. 
Here the first question will be, What shall 
determine my reading ? 

1. While you should read nothing which 
does not interest you, something besides in- 
terest must decide what the book shall be. 
If the interest always coincided with what 
is best, it were well indeed ; but pleasure 
rarely coincides wholly with judgment. 
Therefore, I say, read what is best for you, 
what will teach you something ; read to 
know, to think ; but you must also be inter- 
ested. It is not necessary to descend in the 
character of one's reading to find zest; it 
may be found by turning aside. Descents, 
everywhere and in all things, are to be 
avoided. You may take no interest in 



170 READING. 

Hume's " History of England ; " try Green's, 
or Knight's with its rich illustrations, or 
even Dickens's " Child's History," — a book 
for all. Another method would be to read 
those novels of Scott which touch upon the 
various reigns, and the historical plays of 
Shakespeare, — the best of all English his- 
tories, truest to the time and freest from 
bias. Starting with one of these, or " The 
Abbot," or Kingsley's " Hereward," pass to 
the more accurate, but no truer form in the 
pages of Macaulay and Freeman and Green. 
Ancient history is proverbially dull ; but 
we can get it in charming and trustworthy 
form from Ebers. Still, we must not forget 
Plutarch, that " prattler of history " as Em- 
erson calls him, — the serenest and most sta- 
ble figure in the whole world of books. 

So of biography, — a department of liter- 
ature so large that you cannot be expected 
to compass it ; but you should not fail to let 
yourself feel the peculiar inspiration to be 
found only in such books as the " Life of 
Charles Kingsley," Smiles's " Life of Ste- 
phenson," Hughes's " Alfred the Great," 
Irving's " Columbus " and " Washington," 
and Trevelyan's " Life of Macaulay." Get 
a definite knowledge of our own greatest 



READING. 171 

men : Lincoln, Webster, John Quincy Ad- 
ams, and others whom I need not men- 
tion. And I wish you all had upon your 
shelves the " English Men of Letters " 
series. 

Your religious friend puts into your hand 
a volume of sermons, — very good, doubtless, 
but to you " dry as summer dust." Ask 
him for those of Phillips Brooks or Rob- 
ertson, and in time you may come to like 
those of Bushnell and even Mozley. Per- 
haps you are skeptical, and he gives you a 
volume of " Evidences ; " it is too exacting 
in its thought, and fails to hit your mood 
or temper of mind. Try, instead, Brooks's 
" Influence of Jesus," or the " Life of Rob- 
ertson, " or the sermons of Washington 
Gladden, or the short addresses of Professor 
Drummond ; books instinct with fresh and 
noble feeling. 

Still, an earnest reader must have a deeper 
motive than interest. One must not pet 
one's self in this matter. It is a serious 
part of life's business, and must be con- 
ducted upon sound principles and with reso- 
lute firmness. 

2. Read for general culture. As one 
studies grammar for correctness of speech, 



172 READING. 

or travels to learn the ways of the world, 01 
mingles in society for refinement in man- 
ners, so one ought to read for a certain 
dress and decoration of the mind. It is not 
creditable — it is like excessive rusticity 
in manners and attire — to lack a certain 
knowledge of English literature. It is em- 
barrassing to others when you are not able 
to respond with some degree of intelligence 
to what they assume to be well known by 
all. I hardly know how you manage it when 
the young lady fresh from Smith or Welles- 
ley asks you which of Shakespeare's plays 
you most admire. I can assure you that no 
disquisition upon the reigning actress will 
blind her to the fact that you are unfamiliar 
with "Hamlet." To this end of simple fitness 
for society, one should read parts, at least, 
of certain authors. It will not be amiss to 
indicate the lowest requirements, especially 
as they are available by all : a part of Shake- 
speare's plays, — " Hamlet," " Macbeth," 
" The Tempest," " The Merchant of Ven- 
ice," and " Julius Caesar ; " Milton's shorter 
poems and the first two books of u Paradise 
Lost ; " " Pilgrim's Progress ; " Boswell's 
" Life of Johnson ;" the poems of Goldsmith 
and Burns ; Wordsworth's ballads, sonnets, 



HEADING. 173 

and " Ode on Immortality ; " parts of By- 
ron's " Childe Harold ; " a few of the shorter 
poems of Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, and Cow- 
per ; some of the essays of Lamb, Macaulay, 
De Quincey, Matthew Arnold, and Lowell ; 
Tennyson, Browning, and Ruskin, in part; 
Green's " History of England ; " Carlyle's 
Earlier Essays, and " Sartor Resartus ; " the 
one or two best works of the great novel- 
ists, certainly four or five of Sir Walter 
Scott ; some definite knowledge of our own 
authors, — Irving, Cooper, Hawthorne, Em- 
erson, Prescott, Motley, Bancroft, Parkman, 
Mrs. Stowe, and our five great poets. So 
much we need to read before our minds are 
well enough attired for good society ; other- 
wise we must appear in intellectual home' 
spun. 

3. Read somewhat in the way of disci- 
pline. This may take you in a direction 
contrary to your tastes. You are doubtless 
fond of the novel, but it is not enough to 
say : I will read only such as are good. You 
require another kind of book, — an essay, a 
treatise, a review article, a history or biog- 
raphy, — something that may not win at- 
tention, which therefore you must give. The 
chief, if not the only value, of mathemat 



174 READING. 

ics as a discipline lies in its cultivation of 
the habit of attention, — close consecutive 
thought hehl to its work by the will. I do 
not see why the same end may not be gained 
by reading, if it is done in this way of attend- 
ing, — stretching the mind over the subject 
so as wholly to cover and embrace it. When 
one reads out of mere interest, and without 
exercise of the will, the mind becomes flabby. 
There can be no strength where there is no 
will. The omnivorous reader is often weak 
and essentially ignorant. There is such a 
thing as being the slave of books ; true read- 
ing implies mastery. Hare says : " For my 
own part, I have ever gained the most profit, 
and the most pleasure also, from the books 
which have made me think the most ; and 
when the difficulties have once been over- 
come, these are the books which have struck 
the deepest root, not only in my memory, 
but likewise in my affections." 

4. Read variously. The secret of true 
living is to have many interests. Think with 
the astronomer and with the farmer ; with 
your neighbor and with him at the antip- 
odes ; with lawyer and doctor and clergy- 
man ; with merchant and manufacturer ; 
with high and low. We are in a rich and 



READING. 175 

complex world ; we should touch it at as 
many points as possible. The literature that 
mirrors it is also rich and various ; wider 
even than the world, since it contains the 
past, and also the possible. Man is coor- 
dinated to this richness and variety ; so far 
as may be, he should draw upon the whole 
of it, for he needs it all to fill his own 
mould. I distrust the man of one book, 
even if it is the best of books, or of one class 
of books. A lawyer may get no direct aid 
from Tennyson in pleading, but you may 
more safely trust your case with him, if it 
be a large one ; the fact of reading such an 
author indicates that he covers more space 
in the world of thought. A physician can- 
not study human nature in Shakespeare 
without getting many a hint which will be 
helpful in his practice. He fails oftenest 
in imaginative grasp ; Shakespeare is the 
best teacher of breadth. All other things 
being equal, trust the lawyer who reads 
books of imagination, the physician who 
studies books unfolding human nature, and 
the preacher who does not confine himself to 
theology. 

In the recent works of English scholars, 
whether on natural science, medicine, his- 



176 READING. 

tory, political economy, biography, or the- 
ology, you will observe that they are wide 
readers outside of their departments. It not 
only imparts a charm and richness to their 
style, but makes their books more trust- 
worthy, for it shows that they think in 
various directions, and therefore are better 
entitled to their opinions. 

There is special need of wide reading at 
present, because of a certain antagonism 
between the great departments of thought. 
Physics and ethics, science and theology, 
stand in apparent opposition. But the 
reader, whose business it is to " circumnavi- 
gate human nature,' ' cannot recognize such 
antagonism ; Trojan and Tyrian must be 
regarded alike. It is unscholarly to read 
science, and not theology ; physics and not 
morals. 

You will find, after a time, that one of 
the chief delights in reading consists in 
substantiating what you find in one depart- 
ment by what you find in another. The 
secret of the charm lies in the fact that one 
is following the hidden threads that bind the 
creation into unity. Material things are 
the shadows of spiritual things ; the law of 
the planet is in the flower and in man. The 



UFA DING. 177 

intelligent reader has no keener enjoyment 
than in the surprise felt as he comes on these 
analogies. As an illustration, — in our last 
chapter, the passion of anger was spoken of 
as hostile to physical vitality. We learned 
that these wires which we call nerves are 
never so strong after they have once trem- 
bled with rage, — a fact taught by physiol- 
ogy. But in the Book of morals we are for- 
bidden to hate, and anger is declared to be 
folly. As we come across it in physics, we 
say, How wise ! When we find it in ethics, 
we say, How gracious ! It is a law that, 
throughout each sphere, allies itself with 
highest good. But what shall we say when 
we place the two revelations side by side, — 
the body uttering its physical law and the 
spirit its moral law in complete accord, — 
heaven and earth agreeing to one issue ! 
The charm of such interwoven truth is the 
reward of the wide and impartial reader. 
If you have a fancy or partiality, you may 
best feed it, not by direct, but by general 
reading, for you will find it running as a 
thread through all literature. 

. 5. Never read below your tastes. If a 
book seems to you in any way poor, coarse, 
low, or untrue, it should be passed by. 



178 READING. 

There may be reasons why we should as- 
sociate with low persons ; we may influence 
them, but we cannot alter a book. The 
first quality to be demanded of a book is 
that it shall be true ; the second is that it 
shall be noble. If there is laughter in it, 
it must be the laughter of the gods. Books 
of humor, especially those of American 
origin, are to be carefully scrutinized, and at 
most but " tasted." Those of Lowell and 
Holmes are almost the only exceptions. 

6. Read on a level with your author, 
with no subservience, in a kindly critical 
mood, — the author a person, yourself also 
consciously a person. 

I occasionally turn over the leaves of a 
copy of Tucker's " Light of Nature," — as 
solid and abstruse a book as one often en- 
counters, — which was owned and annotated 
on its broad margins by Leigh Hunt. It 
is admirable to see how the airy poet kept 
abreast of his robust author, challenging 
his thought, denying here and agreeing 
there. I have by me a copy of the " Life 
and Letters of Henry More," annotated by 
President Stiles ; but the old New England 
divine does not seem to have been abashed 
before the great Platonist. Do not sit at 



READING. 179 

the feet of your author but by his side ; 
trust him but watch him. He has his limi- 
tations and prejudices, and at some point 
they may be narrower than your own. 
This is eminently necessary in reading such 
authors as George Eliot, Emerson, Carlyle, 
and Matthew Arnold. The critical faculty 
is assisted by wide reading. We not only 
use our own judgment, but we learn to pit 
authors against each other : Emerson the 
transcendentalist against George Eliot the 
positivist ; the spiritual Amiel against the 
materialistic Spencer. It is not necessary 
to agree wholly with any author ; there is in 
each a limitation, a weakness, which is to be 
taken for granted. It is Shakespeare only 
who seems never to falter, never to go be- 
yond or fall short. 

7. Read in the line of your pursuit. If 
you build sewers or bridges, study up the 
Roman aqueducts. If you handle dyes, do 
not be ignorant of the Tyrian purple. The 
obvious effect of reading upon one's pursuit 
is that one can follow it more intelligently ; 
but it has a finer value : when we take our 
labor into literature it is ennobled. Farm- 
ing has grown steadily in dignity as it has 
been studied and followed in the light of 



180 READING. 

books. When we read of our pursuits, we 
think of them more calmly, more profoundly 
and objectively. Our vocation is so near us 
that we do not see it, but the book separates 
us from it so that we look on all sides. And 
if by chance it throws about it some ray of 
genius, puts it into the setting of a poem or 
romance, we go to its tasks with lighter 
hearts. 

8. I have no need to suggest that one 
should i*ead in view of one's deficiencies. 

9. Read thoroughly. The triteness of 
the words measures their importance. You 
may glide over the newspaper and rush 
through the novel, but have constantly at 
hand something of a substantial character, 
and fit to be classed as literature, — a his- 
tory, a biography, a volume of travels or 
essays or science, which you are reading for 
the definite purpose of mastering its con- 
tents. 

Webster said, " Many other students 
read more than I did, and knew more than 
I did, but so much as I read I made my 
own." Burke read a book as if he were 
never to see it a second time. 

10. Read from a centre. I mean, take 
your stand upon an epoch, or character, or 



READING. 181 

question, and read out from it. Suppose it 
be Iceland : first know the country by books 
of travel, then study its history through its 
millennium back to Denmark, then its litera- 
ture as it runs into Scandinavian romance 
and mythology, then trace its explorations 
upon this continent. Suppose it be Milton : 
hunt him up and down in the encyclopae- 
dias and wherever else he may be found, from 
Dr. Johnson's Life a hundred and fifty 
years ago, to Pattison's Life of yesterday. 
You thus come into a sort of intimacy with 
your character that is almost personal and 
even friendly, if you care so to have it. Or 
suppose it be history : when you come to 
such a character as Cromwell or Mary Stuart, 
find out what the various authors say, from 
the Tory Hume to the radical Froude and the 
dissenting Geikie. One age, one country, 
one character, thoroughly mastered — this is 
reading. 

If this seems like making a toil of what 
should always be a pleasure, let me say that 
after a time this habit of thoroughness gets to 
be a source of keenest enjoyment. We speak 
of the pleasures of knowledge, but may not 
have discovered that only exact knowledge 
can yield pleasure. The principle goes very 



|g2 READING. 

deep. A desultory, careless reader may 
draw a certain excitement from books, but 
no peace or satisfaction. 

11. Having made by chance a decalogue 
of rules, among which I trust there is no 
useless one, I close with an eleventh com- 
mandment, greater than all: Cultivate a 
friendly feeling towards books. 

Frederick Denison Maurice wrote a vol- 
ume named " The Friendship of Books." It 
indicates a very real thing. Milton went so 
far in giving personality to a book that he 
said, " Almost as well kill a man as a book." 
Books are our most steadfast friends ; they 
are our resource in loneliness ; they go with 
us on our journeys ; they await our return ; 
they are our best company; they are a 
refuge in pain ; they breathe peace upon 
our troubles ; they await age as ministers 
of youth and cheer ; they bring the whole 
world of men and things to our feet ; they 
put us in the centre of the world ; they sum- 
mon us away from our narrow life to their 
greatness, from our ignorance to their wis- 
dom, from our partial or distempered vision 
to their calm and universal verdicts. ^ There 
may be something of discord in their min- 
gled voices, but the undertone speaks for 
truth and virtue and faith. 



VIII. 
AMUSEMENTS. 



" Let him not attempt to regulate other people's plea- 
sures by his own tastes." — Helps. 

" And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and 
girls playing in the streets thereof ." — Zechariah. 

" I can easily persuade myself, that, if the world were 
f ree5 _f r ee, I mean, of themselves, — brought up, all, 
out of work into the pure inspiration of truth and charity, 
new forms of personal and intellectual beauty would 
appear, and society itself reveal the Orphic movement." 

— BUSHNELL. 

" The only happiness a brave man ever troubled him- 
self with asking much about, was happiness enough to 
get his work done." — Carlyle. 

"The object of all recreation is to increase our ca- 
pacity for work, to keep the blood pure, and the brain 
bright, and the temper kindly and sweet." — Dr. R. W. 
Dale. 



vm. 

AMUSEMENTS. 

I would prefer, if it were possible, to 
avoid entering on the question as to the 
right or wrong of certain amusements, be- 
cause I think it a very poor and profitless 
discussion. It were better to take the sub- 
ject out of the plane of scruple and allow- 
ance, — so far and no farther, this much 
and no more, — and lift it up into a nobler 
atmosphere. Instead of haggling over the 
proper allowance or kind of amusements, I 
would have one rather indifferent to the 
whole subject — above it, in short. If you 
are animated by right principles, and have 
awakened to the dignity of life, the sub- 
ject of amusements may be left to settle it- 
self. It is not a difficult question unless it 
be made primary. When, however, amuse- 
ments dominate the life ; when they consume 
any considerable fraction of one's time or 
income ; when they are found to be giving a 



186 AMUSEMENTS. 

controlling tone to the thoughts ; when they 
pass the line of moderation, and run into 
excess ; when they begin to be in any degree 
a necessity, — having shaped the mind to 
their form, — they grow vexatious, and be- 
come a difficult factor in the adjustment of 
conduct. 

There is a famous saying of St. Augus- 
tine, " Love and do all things," that covers 
the subject, though its generalization may 
be too broad for common use. Still, I hate 
to descend from the lofty principle that 
should guide us in the matter, to its details. 
I wish young men were so devoted to their 
callings that they would feel but slight in- 
terest in the popular amusements of the day. 
I wish they had such a sense of the value of 
time when devoted to books, that they would 
not waste their evenings before minstrel 
troupes, or in games of any sort. I wish 
they were so sensitive to place and company 
that they would avoid the common billiard 
saloon. I wish they were so thrifty of 
money, so careful of health, and so sensible 
on several other points, that the all-night 
ball would be out of the question. I wish 
they had so much of that fine feeling called 
aristocratic that they would decline to 



AMUSEMENTS. 187 

mingle socially in company that is open to 
all on payment of money, — a doorkeeper 
and a ticket the only introduction and bar- 
rier. I wish they had so lofty an ambition, 
such a determination to get on and up in the 
world, that they would give all these things 
the go-by for the most part. 

But these wishes are keyed too high for 
realization, and I must speak in another 
way, coming nearer to the casuistry of the 
subject, though I dislike that view of it. 
Your demand is for distinctions and drawn 
lines, and definite rehearsal of the innocent 
and forbidden. Well, if we make distinc- 
tions, let us at least make true ones. 

The present perplexity largely comes from 
accepting, in a hereditary way, distinctions 
that once may have been necessary, but are 
so no longer. The amusements and vices of 
English society under the Stuarts were so 
interwoven that it was easier to sweep out 
the whole by a single act of lieroic protest 
than it was to enter upon the nice work of 
separation. It may have been wise social 
economy, but it was a mistake to insert this 
indiscriminate cleansing of society into the 
fabric of religion. The attitude of the Pu- 
ritan was, — I will forego all pleasures till 



188 AMUSEMENTS. 

I have crushed out Cavalier vices. It was 
so akin to religion that the two became iden- 
tical. Vices and pleasures were put in the 
same category. There was some justifica- 
tion of Macaulay's remark that the Puri- 
tans objected to bear-baiting, not because 
it tormented the bear, but because it gave 
pleasure to the spectators. The stress that 
constrained the Puritan passed away, leaving 
a set of distinctions as to amusements all 
interwoven with religion, but forming no 
essential part of it and having no basis in 
clear thought. Hence all moral training 
in New England has had a large negative 
element; its sign has been the not doing 
certain things. Meanwhile we have been 
learning that our Faith, which ultimately 
regulates these matters, is not keyed to such 
a note, but is a gift, and a spirit that trans- 
forms all things. Our traditions and our 
knowledge have come into conflict. One 
side says, it has always been held wrong to 
do this and that, and therefore we must 
abstain. The other side denies the binding 
force of such logic, and, as always happens 
when barriers are thrown down, rushes into 
extremes. On one side is bigotry, on the 
other license. Each mistakes, — one in ap- 



AMUSEMENTS. 189 

plying the restrictions of religion to things 
not essentially evil, the other in forgetting 
that innocent things may not be the best, 
and may be used as bad things. All the 
grand emphasis of religion^ however mis- 
taken, has been on one side ; all the eager- 
ness of human nature on the other. It is 
not strange that in such a state of the ques- 
tion, young people do about as they choose. 
Truer distinctions will be made when we 
fully learn that our Faith is not a system 
of restriction, but a bringer-in of higher life ; 
not a rule, but an inspiration. When the 
order and habits of the Faith are estab- 
lished, the question of amusements will be 
practically an easy one to settle. It tells us 
that whatever is not in itself evil, whatever 
is not in excess, whatever does not naturally 
minister to vice, is free. It does not, how- 
ever, say that it is best to use this liberty 
to the full, nor that you are not to come into 
ways of thinking which shut amusements 
out of all power to tempt or injure. A col- 
lege president is wholly free to pull in a 
boat-race, but higher considerations may 
render it unwise that he should do so ; and, 
having weightier matters on hand, it is not 
probable that his desires run strongly in 
that direction. 



190 AMUSEMENTS. 

The debate practically centres upon dan- 
cing, cards, and theatre-going. In speaking 
of them we shall indulge in no equivocation, 
no paltering with false reasons, no throwing 
of dust into the eyes in order to gain time, 
no use of arguments which break down 
when applied* without essential change, to 
other things. In illustration* — cards are 
condemned because they are the tools of 
gamblers and lead to gambling, but billiards, 
which are equally the tools of gamblers and 
are played even less frequently without gam- 
bling than cards, have no general and tra- 
ditional condemnation. Such reasoning and 
such distinctions do infinite harm. Nothing 
so tends to break down all sense of right 
and wrong, as basing conduct on false rea- 
sons, and making distinctions that are with- 
out reasons. 

In these three things I think it wiser to 
discriminate than to reject. I grant that 
they do not represent very high phases of 
conduct, and that an atmosphere not the 
purest invests them ; still, it is better to 
draw the line between use and abuse than 
to turn them altogether out of life. It 
may be said that it is easier and safer to 
reject them, than to apply the distinction. 






AMUSEMENTS, 191 

It ought not to be easier to use wrong rea- 
son than right reason. All application of 
truth to society is a matter of faith. It is 
better to trust an untried truth, than to 
work a prudential fallacy. Besides, the ques- 
tion has practically settled itself by usage. 
Nearly all who feel inclined to do so dance, 
and play with cards, and go to the opera 
and theatre. The circles are very small in 
which these amusements are totally inhib- 
ited ; and, in these cases, one is often forced 
to suspect that the reason for the abstaining 
lies in the position rather than in the con- 
science. 

The reason for this almost general indul- 
gence in these amusements is that they are 
not regarded as essentially evil, or inconsis- 
tent with correct principles. It is plainly 
wiser to make a distinction between use and 
abuse than to hold fast the door of prohibi- 
tion after everybody has gone through. 

What then of dancing ? A beautiful and 
simple amusement, based on the mysterious 
laws of rhythm, — the body responding 
with the grace of motion to the measure of 
music. It is not strange that it has been 
used in religion. So fine a thing, grounded 
in such sanctity of natural law, should be 



192 amubemen: 

kept at the highest point of beauty and pu- 
rity. Any association of it with what is vile, 
or coarse, or excessive, is a profanation. It 
is, moreover, as a fine wine among the plea- 
sures, and is not for daily use. Its practice 
is an instruction of the body, teaching com- 
mand of the person, and grace and dignity 
of bearing. Its period is in youth, while 
rhythm has its seat in the blood, and not 
after it has passed into the thought. So 
fine a thing requires the most delicate and 
gracious ordering. Its place is in the home, 
where parents greet only guests. The hall 
at which a doorkeeper takes tickets bought 
in the market is plainly not a fit place for a 
pleasure so pure and natural, and, because 
natural, liable to abuse. Of all things, dan- 
cing should not be miscellaneous, and there 
are objections of utmost weight to be urged 
against the all-night ball. The general and 
unanswerable criticism to be made upon it is 
that of excess. The physician, the teacher, 
the employer, the parent, the unprejudiced 
looker-on, each brings in his specific protest. 
It can be tolerated only as you tolerate a 
wholesale violation of physical and social 
laws. 

What of card-playing ? I suppose if any* 



AMUSEMENTS. 193 

tiling could be annihilated without sensible 
loss to human welfare, it would be that small 
package of pasteboard known as cards ; 
but we had best not pray for it, lest some 
worse thing take its place. Their abuse is 
immense, but they have a use that is at 
least allowable. An abuse ought not to be 
suffered to destroy a use, except in rarest 
cases ; it is not the way to prevent evil. 
The use will constantly be clamoring for 
return, bringing back also the abuse. The 
wiser way is to separate them by some prin- 
ciples of common sense. In this matter the 
distinction is easily made. As a household 
amusement, what can be more innocent ? 
In point of fact, boys, who from the first 
are accustomed to cards, commonly outgrow 
them, or hold them as of slightest moment. 
But " stolen waters are sweet, and bread 
eaten in secret is pleasant." Many a boy 
has been morally broken down through 
yielding to the well-nigh irresistible temp- 
tation of an innocent game that was pro- 
hibited as sinful in his home. There is 
an amazing lack of practical wisdom in this 
matter. " I cannot persuade my boys to 
join me in a game of whist," said a respect- 
able gentleman of his grown-up sons. His 



1 94 A M USE. VENTS. 

neighbor forbade cards (I take this twofold 
note from life) and his four sons grew into 
gamblers. Gamesters do not come from 
households in which games are the trivial 
sports of childhood. Their fascination evap- 
orates with the dew of youth. An amuse- 
ment in early life, a recreation in age, a 
thing of indifference in the working period 
of life, — such is the place of cards. Their 
abuse is very great. As a means of gam- 
bling, as a waster of time, as taking the 
place of rational society, — for a whist-party 
is an organization of inanity, — they cannot 
be too sharply condemned. 

Young men should govern themselves 
strictly in this thing. Don't play in the 
cars ; gamblers do, gentlemen as a rule do 
not. Never play in public places ; it is the 
just mark of a loafer. Refuse to devote 
whole evenings to whist ; life is too short 
and books are too near. Rate the whole 
matter low, and have such uses for your 
time and faculties that you can say to all, I 
have other matters to attend to. 

Billiards come under the same general 
rules. 

But the war of opinions is waged chiefly 
over the opera and theatre. If the question 



AMUSEMENTS. 195 

were to take the form of indiscriminate and 
habitual attendance upon them, it would ad- 
mit of quick answer. There is an old criti- 
cism of the stage that is not easily set aside. 
It is twofold ; the appeal to the sensibilities 
is excessive ; the scenic cannot be made a 
vehicle of moral teaching, because the me- 
dium is one of unreality, — in fine, because 
it is acting. If one were to choose the 
surest and speediest method of reducing 
himself to a mush of sensibility, let him 
steadily frequent the opera and theatre. 
What emotion do they not stir? What 
good purpose do they confirm ? Hell opens 
on the stage and swallows up Don Giovanni, 
but what roue leaves the house with altered 
purpose ? The play may contain a moral 
lesson, but in conveying truth much depends 
upon the medium ; the poorest medium is 
one that is false. On the stage nothing is 
real ; everything from painted scene to cos- 
tumed actor is fictitious except the bare 
sentiment of the play, which commonly 
shares the fate of its medium, and is lost 
with it at the fall of the curtain. 

The claim of the theatre to be a school of 
morals is false ; not because it is immoral, 
but because it cannot, from its very nature, 



196 AMUSEMENTS. 

be a teacher of morals. It may have just 
claims, but they are not of this sort. 

The opera gives us music in almost the 
highest degree of the art. Human society 
will never shut itself off from the realiza- 
tion of any true art, nor should it do so. 
Its instinctive course is to insist on the art, 
and to trust time and change to rid it of 
evil association. 

A like claim may be made for the theatre ; 
it is a field for the expression of the highest 
literature through a genuine art. Here is a 
solid fact that will never be wiped out. The 
stage has stood for three thousand years be- 
cause it has a basis in human nature. It 
represents an art, and society never drops 
an art. 

The abuses which have clustered about it 
are enormous. In evil days it sinks to the 
bottom of the scale of decency, and in good 
days it hardly rises to the average. Still, it 
reflects society, and with the growing habit 
of attendance on the part of respectable 
people it steadily gains in respectability. A 
long journey, however, is before it in this 
direction. " Oh, reform it altogether," 
prays Hamlet. But the drift is plain, and 
the final solution is apparent. Society will 



AMUSEMENTS. 197 

not drop the stage, but will demand that 
it shall rise to its own standards, and be 
as pure as itself ; decent people will have a 
decent sta^v. 

I have written frankly, because I think it 
better to give young men the true view of 
the subject, than to shut them up in pru- 
dential inclosures which are full of logical 
gaps. 

It does not by any means follow that it 
is wise or right for a young man to give him- 
self up to the habit of theatre-going. Aside 
from the moral contamination incident to 
the average theatre, its influence intellectu- 
ally is degrading. Its lessons are morbid, 
distorted, and superficial ; they do not mir- 
ror life. " Seems, madam," says Hamlet, 
" I know not seems." Neither do any of us 
recognize the seeming with any power. 

But the crucial question comes at last : 
Shall we never visit the theatre ? When 
the place is decent in its associations, when 
the play is pure and has some true worth, 
when the acting has the merit of art, I know 
of no principle that forbids it. But if, 
under these conditions, you see fit to attend, 
let it be no reason for visiting the average 
theatre, nor let it represent a habit. The 



198 AMUSEMENTS. 

popular amusements should not be made 
habits ; it is recreation — a very different 
thing — that should be made habitual. 

Our answer provokes the straight ques- 
tion : Would it not be better to make it a 
matter of rule and principle, and abstain 
altogether? We can make rules, but not 
principles ; they are made for us. The prin- 
ciple here consists in distinguishing between 
use and abuse, between the bad and the in- 
nocent, and not in a blind rejection of the 
whole matter. As to the rule, I would ask 
young men to observe rational distinctions, 
not shut them up to rules they have no mind 
to observe. 

I have spoken thus of amusements, chiefly 
in order to get them into a region of clear 
thought ; but I have another and more diffi- 
cult end in view, namely, to lead you to 
regard them as but trivial and secondary 
matters or to take you away from them alto- 
gether. They are not of the substance of 
life, they do not face the heights of our na- 
ture, but are turned toward the child-side of 
it. The dance, the game, the play, all quite 
innocent in themselves and involving some- 
thing of art, are not the stuff out of which 
manhood is built, nor must they enter largely 



AMUSEMENTS. 199 

into it. We naturally connect them with 
early years, and expect them to drop their 
claims when life fully asserts itself. It 
seems not quite the true order when they 
largely engage the interest of men and wo- 
men who are in the midst of their years. 
Still, this is a matter of individual taste and 
judgment. 

I wage no crusade against these amuse- 
ments ; I am only solicitous lest you rate 
them too highly, and weigh them too care- 
lessly. It is painful to see a young man in 
a flutter of question if he may engage in 
this or that amusement. Diogenes does not 
long pause over him. Two young men go 
to their teacher, or some wise friend, for ad- 
vice ; one asks if it is wrong to dance, or 
play with cards, or go to the theatre. His 
friend tells him that it is not necessarily 
wrong to do these things, and, with a word 
of caution, somewhat sadly sends him away. 
The other young man asks him if he can put 
him in the way of getting a list of the Ro- 
man emperors, or a fair estimate of Dean 
Swift, or the various theories of the Great 
Pyramid, or the "Life of Stephenson," as 
he has some thought of becoming a railroad 
man. It needs no prophet to foretell which 



200 AMUSEMENTS. 

will be brakeman, and which president of 
the road. 

You have already detected my purpose. 
It is not to mete the bounds of amusements, 
but to turn you away from any deep interest 
in them. They are free to you in a wise 
way, but you have other business in hand. 

It is not without reason that I call you to 
the severer estimate of the subject. As mat- 
ters are going, society seems to be shaping 
itself into an organization for generating the 
greatest possible amount of pleasure. The 
commonest figure to-day — I fear he is al- 
most typical — is the young man demanding 
first of all that he shall be amused ; amused 
he must be, at whatever cost, and if society 
and education and church are not shaped to 
that end he will have nought to do with 
them. Meanwhile church and college and 
society hasten to comply, suggesting that 
the main business of each is to keep up a 
" show." One wishes with Douglas Jerrold 
" that the world would get tired of this eter- 
nal guffaw." Let me say to the young men 
who read these pages, that while the many 
are amusing themselves, a few earnest ones 
turn aside and seize the prizes of life. I 
would have you of this number. I would 



AMUSEMENTS. 201 

persuade you to extricate yourselves from 
the giggling crowd, and hold that life may 
be worth living even if it does not pro- 
vide you with a stunning amusement every 
twenty-four hours. I would have you strong 
and clear-headed enough to enter your pro- 
test against the insidious, emasculating idea 
so prevalent, that the main object in life is 
" to have a good time." I would have you 
realize that " a soul sodden with pleasure " 
is the most utterly lost and degraded soul 
that can be. When pleasure rules the life, 
mind, sensibility, health shrivel and waste, 
till at last and not tardily, no joy in earth or 
heaven can move the worn-out heart to re- 
sponse. 

But shall a young man have no amuse- 
ments? He is not shut off from any that 
sound sense and a high ambition allow ; but 
if these governing principles are not kept 
at the fore-front of life, nothing is admissi- 
ble. Just now amusement seems to be pri- 
mary, while, in truth, it is the last thing 
about which we need to concern ourselves. 
What does a bird or an angel think of it ? 
Each wings his way, and his flight is his joy. 

Mr. Ruskin touches our theme most aptly : 
" All real and wholesome enjoyments possible 



202 AMUSEMENTS. 

to man have been just as possible to him since 
first he was made of the earth as they are 
now. To watch the corn grow and the blos- 
soms set, to draw hard breath over plough- 
share and spade, to read, to think, to love, to 
hope, to pray ; these are the things that 
make men happy." Mr. Ruskin is too lofty, 
too severe, you say. We find ourselves after 
this long discussion simply exhorted to noble 
feelings and ambitions, and left befogged 
in clouds of high sentiment ; life after all is 
made up of real acts ; we want to know ex- 
actly with what form of pleasure we may 
offset our hard toil of brain or hands, how 
we shall let off this exuberance of vitality 
that bubbles within, how we may gratify this 
instinct of play — natural as laughter itself. 
I will make what answer I can. 

The amusements referred to, the stage, the 
dance, the games, and things of like nature, 
— are not to be regarded as true recreation or 
play. They do not rest one except as change 
rests, they consume vitality rather than fur- 
nish a channel for it, and they cannot always, 
from their nature, be closely ingrafted with 
daily life. They may serve as an occasional 
pleasure, but they cannot afford constant 
recreation, which every one must have, and 



AMUSEMENTS. 203 

can hardly have in excess. I would make 
the broadest and most emphatic distinction 
between pleasure derived from these amuse- 
ments, and enjoyment drawn from other 
sources. I mean, by this distinction, get- 
ting our own natures at work in simple and 
pleasurable ways instead of looking for ex- 
ternal excitement. 

I may seem to have reached a very prosaic 
conclusion, but I claim that motion in the 
open air, under clear skies, and in close con- 
tact with nature, is the finest and keenest 
recreation possible to a healthy-minded, full- 
blooded man. When it is not so regarded, 
it is because neither mind nor body are in 
normal condition. The distinguishing mark 
of those who are devoted to the amusements, 
as contrasted with those who delight in open- 
air recreation, is listlessness, — a very com- 
mon thing as we note the gait, air, and voice 
of many young men. The grandest figure 
of a man seen in Great Britain for a hun- 
dred years was Christopher North. In the 
chapter on Health we described him as run- 
ning among the Highlands for hours, exult- 
ing in what De Quincey calls " the glory of 
motion." Wilson knew what pleasure was 
in other forms, but he knew nothing higher 



204 AMUSEMENTS. 

than this, — a glorious manhood intoxicated 
with the wine of overflowing life. 

When Dr. Wayland was asked what plea- 
sures he would recommend, he said, " Take 
a walk." It was not very prosy advice, 
nor will it seem such to one who has not 
sunk into a prosy state of mind and body. 
Thoreau considered a walk the height of 
felicity. My point is, if you would get into 
close contact with nature and cultivate the 
intimacies and sympathies which look in that 
direction, you would win an enjoyment far 
finer than that to be got from the technical 
amusements, with their feverish accessories. 
Climb the hills about you, — West Rock, 
Holyoke, Wachusett, Greylock, the Pali- 
sades. What do you know of the ravines 
and waterfalls within a ten-mile radius? 
Do you know the haunts and habits of the 
animals in the forests ? Do you know the 
trees, the flowers, and their times ? Do you 
know the exultation that comes with standing 
on mountain tops, and the tender awe that 
dwells in thick woods and deep glens, and 
the music of waters in these still heights? 
And do you know how profound and sweet 
is sleep after a day in the woods ? An hour 
or a day, spent in the open air, in saddle, or 






AMUSEMENTS. 205 

better on foot, with cheery company or alone 
with an easy, care-discarding mind, yields 
recreation that is satisfying just in the de- 
gree in which the nature is sound. 

If any say : this is well, but not enough, 
or, it is not practicable, let me suggest that 
they find a hobby. There is a provision for 
one in almost every man ; seek it out, and 
gratify it wisely. If a horse, let it be that, 
— steering wide of all jockeying and the 
vulgarity of the race-course ; if animal pets, 
nothing is more wholesome. And there are 
the athletic sports and the broader field of 
the arts, fine and mechanical, the turning- 
lathe, the garden, music, pictures, books, 
science, — the keen and unanxious joy of the 
amateur awaits you in each. 

Every young man, remembering Shake- 
speare's wise words, u Home-bred youths 
have ever homely wits," should now and 
then travel. You say traveling is expen- 
sive ; but reckon what possibly you may 
have spent the last year in cigars, beer, balls, 
theatricals, confectionery, and dress beyond 
your need, and see how far the sum would 
have taken you, — to Washington, or Ni- 
agara, or Quebec, or London perchance. 

As our last and weightiest word on the 



206 AMUSEMENTS. 

subject, I would press the distinction be- 
tween amusement and enjoyment. One is 
pleasure manufactured and served up for us ; 
the other is the satisfaction that flows from 
the sportive action of our own faculties. In 
other words, amuse yourself instead of de- 
pending upon others. Learn the joy of the 
exercise of your own powers rather than 
offer yourself to be played upon from with- 
out for the sake of a new sensation. 

From within out is the order of all life, 
from smallest plant to man. And because 
it is the order of life, it is also the order of 



IX. 
PURITY. 



" This is a grace that is shut up and secured by all arts 
of heaven and the defense of laws, the locks and bars of 
modesty, by honor and reputation, by fear and shame, by 
interest and high regards." — Jeremy Taylor. 

" Blessed are the pure in heart : for they shall see God." 

" But in me lived a sin 
So strange, of such a kind, that all of pure, 
Noble, and knightly in me twined and clung 
Round that one sin, until the wholesome flower 
And poisonous grew together, each as each, 
Not to be pluck' d asunder." 

Tennyson : The Holy Grail. 

"Courage may be considered as purity in outward 
action ; purity as courage in the inner man. in the more 
appalling struggles which are waged within our own 
hearts." — Guesses at Truth. 

" The sacred lowe o' weel plac'd love, 
Luxuriantly indulge it ; 
But never tempt th* illicit rove, 

Tho' naething should divulge it ; 
I wave the quantum o' the sin, 

The hazard o' concealing ; 

But Och ! it hardens a' within, 

And petrifies the feeling." 

Burns. 



IX. 

PURITY. 

Burke says in his first letter on "A 
Regicide Peace " that " all men who are 
ruined, are ruined on the side of their nat- 
ural propensities." This general assertion 
may have exceptions in those few who are 
almost without natural propensities, but 
have instead some overmastering intellectual 
passion, such as avarice or ambition. It is, 
however, true that most men who are ruined, 
the men whose lives crumble and fall apart 
and come to nothing, reach such an end 
through natural propensity, or appetite. It 
may be one of several appetites, but they 
are mainly alike and work in one way. 
They all rest on natural desire — an inno- 
cent thing if properly governed, but when 
not so used a habit is formed that usurps 
the will, dethrones conscience, and drives the 
man into ruin. 

The ruin of a man is usually marked by 
these steps : — 



210 PURITY. 

Natural desire, — the innocent starting 
point. 

Unlawful gratification of the desire, re- 
sulting in the formation of a habit. 

A subtle growth of the habit. 

Mastery by the habit. 

Ruin by the habit. 

The destroying habit may spring out of 
ignorance ; it may come through evil asso- 
ciates ; it may get possession by means of 
unusual and overmastering temptation, or 
by false reasoning. It is often associated 
with other evil courses, but commonly it is 
the cause of them. 

I might generalize these statements, and 
say that men who are ruined are commonly 
ruined through their bodies : that is, the evil 
work begins there. On the other hand, I 
might say that a man who is saved and be- 
comes a true man lays the foundation of his 
success in his body ; he was first saved in his 
body and then all the way up ; he first got 
into right relations to his body, secured the 
mastery of that, set and kept it to its right 
use and place, and on such a basis reared 
the structure of character. The physical 
underlies all ; and the moral and spiritual 
are no less fine because they have such a 
foundation. 



PURITY. 211 

It is not easy to speak of the subject be- 
fore us ; speech that is too plain may step 
upon the ground of the vice itself, or per- 
haps kindle the fire we would extinguish. 
But it is not necessary to speak with defi- 
niteness. When the word chastity is ut- 
tered, we understand the field and scope of 
the virtue it names, and of the opposing vice. 
We understand what the word purity means 
and know what conduct it covers. When 
a life is said to be vile, we know what habits 
make it such. The vice of such a life is 
so well understood that it does not need to 
be fully named ; silence is the loudest and 
clearest speech. W r hen we cannot speak of 
conduct, we know too well what is meant. 
Such treatment of the vice should be enough. 
What stronger condemnation of a life than 
that it cannot be mentioned ? What a ver- 
dict against conduct when it is spoken of in 
whispers and with hurried words and shamed 
countenance ! 

Much, however, of the vice to which I 
refer has its beginning in partial ignorance ; 
more comes about through self-deception as 
to what is right and what is wrong ; more 
still through the sheer force of temptation. 
Hence it is necessary to speak of the subject 



212 rritiTY. 

— to clear away sophistries, and to brace 
the will against the temptations. The latter 
is all I shall attempt to do ; for I do not 
hesitate to recognize the fact that there is 
a battle to be fought by eveiy young man. 
He is, as Shakespeare says : " At war, 
'twixt will and will not ; " — a war that 
he must fight out for himself. He may be 
helped however, by having shown to him 
firm standing ground, and by having good 
weapons put into his hands. 

Assuming what all well understand, — 
namely, the force and subtilty of the tempt- 
ation, — I will name some of the guards 
young men should put about themselves in 
order to meet it. 

1. It is almost needless to say that you 
should avoid any contact with persons of 
depraved character. The ancient words are 
as wise as ever : " He that toucheth pitch 
shall be defiled therewith." To permit one's 
self even in the way of curiosity to approach 
the precincts of the evil is to tread the 
crumbling edge of hell. One step in that 
direction is to enter a path from which there 
is no return. Fools venture upon it think- 
ing to retrace their steps, — such is always 
the excuse, — but the little way and the 



PURITY. 213 

little while lengthen into a journey that is 
never retraced, or so only as by fire. Let 
this separation go so far as to exclude from 
your company even the man who speaks 
lightly of these paths. Moral contagion is 
as direct as physical, and the man who 
comes into close contact with such evil 
carries it with him wherever he goes, and 
makes an atmosphere that no pure mind can 
breathe. 

2. I urge a proper and careful use of the 
imagination. Command your thoughts, and 
your conduct will take care of itself. The 
widest gate into man, both for good and 
evil, is the imagination. It is holding the 
forms and pictures of evil before the mind 
without intending that they shall become 
acts, which leads at last to their commission. 
We fancy how it might be ; we picture the 
gratification, we turn the forbidden thing 
over and over, and deem it excusable be- 
cause it is all within the mind and so has 
no reality. The imagination is strong in 
early life, and often, before its dangerous 
powers are realized, the mind is made a 
chamber-house of evil imagery. Conduct 
remains pure, but evil is wrought in the 
imagination ; but conduct and imagination 



214 rriiiTY. 

are made for each other : thought means 
action. Fancy and reality approach each 
other, drawn by natural affinity ; the hour 
of special temptation comes, and the smol- 
dering fire flashes into open sin. We are 
prone to say that thinking does no harm so 
long as one acts rightly, forgetting that all 
evil has its source in the mind, whence it 
springs into action. Sudden and unusual 
temptation accounts for some sin of the sort 
we are considering, but most of it comes 
from brooding upon it, from feeding in 
imagination upon its forbidden pleasures, 
from turning it over and over in the mind 
like a sweet morsel in the mouth. When 
there is such a habit as this, the will and 
conscience lose their power. When we 
consent to an evil deed in thought, the will 
to a certain degree is involved. When we 
dwell upon a forbidden pleasure, the con- 
science is partly won over. One cannot 
thus indulge in fancied evil without weaken- 
ing the power of the will and moral sense, 
as well as of finer qualities that stand guard 
about us. It is true that we cannot avoid 
the momentary thought and impulse, but it 
is one thing to have passing thoughts on 
such matters, and another to cherish and 



rrniTY. 215 

prolong them. As the wise Fuller said : 
M we cannot prevent the birds from flying 
over our heads, but we can prevent them 
from building nests in our hair." Keep a 
pure heart, if you would have a pure life. 
Make your mind clean, if you would make 
a clean record. Our directions and courses 
come from within ; as we think, so are we. 
and so we act. If we suffer ourselves to 
think in vile ways, we shall become vile. 
Hence the very hardest part of the battle 
you have to fight is just here, and here the 
victory is to be won. There is enough 
around and within us to start the mind in 
these directions, — pictures in shop-windows, 
posters in the street, scenes upon the stage, 
items in the newspapers, the stirrings of 
desire in ourselves, — enough there is to 
start the fancy on its fatal errand, if we 
but give it rein. There is but one thing to 
do when the mind gets to running in this 
direction, and that is, — to stop it. Down- 
brakes ! Get on another track ! 

3. Another point to be carefully guarded 
is the character of your reading. Nothing 
more thoroughly debauches the mind than 
bad literature, and there is perhaps nothing 
at present which is working larger and more 



216 PURITY. 

disastrous results. The evil may not be 
so widespread as that of intemperauce, and 
it does not involve so many innocent ones, 
but its injury to character is greater, and 
it often paves the way for the drinking 
habit. When the mind of a young man has 
been defiled in this way, there is no whole- 
someness of nature left to resist the other 
temptation. One whose conscience does not 
restrain him from such reading will not 
hesitate to indulge in drink. One whose 
will has broken down in this way will have 
no will left to contend against an inferior 
temptation. He has already sunk to a 
lower depth than that of intemperance. 
The taint strikes deeper, and, unlike that of 
drunkenness, is ineffaceable. A young man 
may shake off the habit of convivial drink- 
ing and come forth pure. Change of asso- 
ciates and of place may help him, and when 
the appetite is conquered, as it may be, there 
is left a sound and uncorrupted nature ; 
hurt it may be, but not beyond entire re- 
covery. Not thus can one shake off and 
overcome the debasement which follows the 
violation of these holiest instincts of our 
nature, even though the violation be con- 
fined to the eye and the thoughts : — 






PURITY. 217 

" Where such fairies once have danced 
No grass will ever grow.' ' 

The corrupting image sets its seal upon 
the most plastic yet enduring part of our 
nature, — the imagination, — whence it is 
always ready to send up its base reflections 
into the thoughts. When the faculty be- 
comes debauched in this way, the man is 
poisoned all through. Thenceforward no- 
thing is pure ; the good angel of his nature 
covers its face in shame and departs. 

You may ask, What is meant by cor- 
rupt literature ? I am so eager to have you 
become familiar with true literature that I 
am glad to make the proper distinction. 
All high literature — by which I mean liter- 
ature that is noble in spirit and pure in its 
aim — may safely be trusted even though it 
deals with gross vice and turns on the play 
of the passions. The tone, the spirit, the at- 
mosphere, the purpose, rather than the topic 
of the book will determine its influence. 
Hence I would have you read " The Scar- 
let Letter," and " Othello," and " The Heart 
of Midlothian," — books that turn on such 
themes, but not injurious because there are 
no details that grossly offend modesty, while 
the purpose and the atmosphere are pure. 



218 PURITY. 

I refer to books of another sort — novels, 
mostly from the French, that tell everything 
and conceal nothing, and have no other real 
object than to stir the passions ; and a still 
lower class that circulate secretly from hand 
to hand and in the dark ; books that are 
never seen exposed for sale, but get into cir- 
culation through covert advertisement and 
through the mails ; books and papers that 
are printed in secret, and sold in secret, and 
read in secret — a process of secret shame 
and shameful secrecy from first to last, — 
issuing from the lowest depths of vileness, 
and leaving vileness wherever they go ; this 
is the literature, if such it can be called, 
against which I am forced to warn you. 

There is injury in reading one such book 
or paper ; it may not lead to overt sin, but 
it damages you; you are not henceforth a 
sound moral being. For the sake of one's 
own comfort and peace of mind, one should 
avoid this evil literature. Give it a wide 
berth ; there is enough that is good. Be- 
sides, it is playing with fire — yes, hell-fire. 
It is the peculiarity of the sin under discus- 
sion that all its processes are quick and pow- 
erful. The passion is well described as ra- 
ging when once kindled. It sweeps through 



PURITY. 219 

one like fire in a dry forest ; a spark may 
start but nothing can stop it. And so it is 
wise to beware of the sparks, and especially 
of those that come under the guise of lit- 
erature and art. There is a subtle power in 
both, never yet wholly explained, of reaching 
and influencing the inmost parts of our be- 
ing for evil and for good. Hence the im- 
perative necessity that they should be kept 
pure. 

4. I must also put you on your guard in 
respect to conversation. Wit, by its nature, 
must have wide license. We say many a 
thing in jest that we cannot say in earnest, 
and a generous mind will give a broad field 
to this lightsome exercise of our nature. 
But it does not follow that wit has all license 
and no bounds. We can pardon much to 
wit, but there are some themes that witty 
speech and all other speech should avoid. 
Wit is not always innocent because it means 
no harm. A witty story is told — a little 
broad, indeed, but nothing bad is intended ; 
it does not prescribe nor suggest conduct ; 
it is for laughter only — what is the harm ? 
I would be willing to leave the answer with 
you if, after listening to such a story, you 
should go out alone and look for one 



220 purity. 

thoughtful moment into the sky, and let the 
stars tell you what they think of it ; or if you 
would recall the image of some pure, glori- 
ous woman, and picture her face if she had 
heard it. It is a pity that we cannot get to 
think of ourselves as wh ite, and therefore li- 
able to be soiled. "We read in the Apocalypse 
of linen clean and white, — the righteousness 
of the saints. Such garments as these are 
easily stained, and if God put such clothing 
upon us, it is our business to see that it is 
kept pure. There is an ideal of conversa- 
tion which all understand, and in their bet- 
ter thought insist on. You would not suf- 
fer low words and allusions to be uttered in 
the presence of your sister, but is there any 
reason why her mind should be kept whiter 
than yours ? If an evil jest can stain a 
woman's mind, it can stain a man's in the 
same degree ; and there is no conceivable 
reason why wit of this sort should have 
more license among men than among wo- 
men. It is a considerable part of the prog- 
ress of human society that the standard of 
morality- and conduct for the coarser sex is 
approaching that which is instinctively set 
for the finer. 

The harm of such wit is that it blackens 









PURITY. 221 

wherever it falls. There are fine and deli- 
cate things about human nature ; we are 
created even as the saints are painted, with 
a glory about our heads ; — fine native 
growths and outputtings of modesty and 
purity and delicacy that are not a special 
gift or exclusive feature of either sex. 
Woman may have them in greater degree, 
and we count it her glory, but man also has 
them, they are also his glory, and when it 
is blasted by the hot breath of evil speech 
the man suffers as great a loss as does the 
woman. 

Let there be also as little conversation as 
possible, of a serious nature, upon these 
themes. Such conversation does not look in 
the right direction ; the motions of the spirit 
are downward. Nature gives us the right 
hint here and hides from our eye the thing 
that is not to be seen, and screens our senses 
from all gross processes and actions. Do 
not suffer yourself to be caught by the Walt 
Whitman fallacy that all nature, and all 
processes of nature, are sacred and may 
therefore be talked about. Walt Whitman 
is not a true poet in this respect, or he 
would have scanned nature more accurately. 
Nature is silent and shy where he is loud 



222 



PURITY. 



and bold. There is no better guide in this 
matter than those instinctive feelings that 
spring up and stay in the mind of every 
pure person. 

If you would find this set down in its best 
form, read Milton's " Comus," one of the 
greatest of poems, written, indeed, in praise 
of woman's chastity, but not less true when 
applied to man's : — 

" So dear to heav'n is saiutly Chastity, 
That when a soul is found sincerely so, 
A thousand liveried angels lackey her, 
Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt, 
And in clear dream and solemn vision, 
Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear, 
Till oft converse with heav'nly habitants 
Begin to cast a beam on th' outward shape, 
The unpolluted temple of the mind, 
And turns it by degrees to the soul's essence, 
Till all be made immortal ; but when Lust, 
By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul talk, 
But most by lewd and lavish act of sin, 
Lets in Defilement to the inward parts, 
The soul grows clotted by contagion, 
Imbodies and imbrutes, till she quite lose 
The divine property of her first being." 

5. One may help one's self greatly in this 
matter by securing good physical conditions. 
I have spoken of it as a battle, but it is one 
in which we may conquer and hold our vic- 
tory easily and securely. I wish to einpha- 






PURITY. 223 

size the fact that the preservation of charac- 
ter need not be a raging war with instinct 
and desire, but may be made a matter of 
easy and peaceful self-control. There is 
nothing better settled than the fact that pu- 
rity may become a habit, and therefore easy 
of observance. In every habit there is some 
exercise of will, and some temptation to the 
contrary, but as a rule what we do by habit 
we do easily; it becomes a second nature. 
The government of the passions is like that 
of the temper. With most persons the tem- 
per is quick and violent, but a gentleman, a 
self-respecting man, finds little difficulty in 
controlling it ; or, if not, he does not excuse 
himself for yielding to it ; he does not admit 
to himself that it is given to be gratified 
rather than governed. So we have the pas- 
sions, not for indulgence, but for govern- 
ment. It is not difficult to come to a right 
understanding with ourselves in this matter, 
and to live at peace with our bodies and 
lower appetites. It is not the full-blooded, 
vigorous body that finds the battle hardest, 
but one that is grossly fed, overstimulated, 
and uncared for. The robust and healthy 
do not fall away from virtue so often as the 
weak and unhealthy. The revenge that a 



224 PURITY. 

body poorly cared for or ill-used often takes 
lies in this direction. Hence, one of the 
things to be considered is the bodily condi- 
tion. Wholesome and plain food, a daily 
cold bath, vigorous exercise even to the point 
of fatigue, regular sleep, good ventilation, 
the utmost cleanliness, and all other things 
essential to good health, — these are your 
helps and safeguards. A good body well 
cared for and well used is not only on the 
side of virtue, but is one of its chief for- 
tresses. 

I hardly need caution you against alcoholic 
drinks. The physical apj^etites lie close to- 
gether ; stimulate one, and you arouse the 
others. This is not only a moral but a phy- 
siological fact. He is happy who has reached 
manhood without having learned the use of 
stimulants in any form. He has not only a 
healthier body, but he is better able to utter 
a decisive no when occasion requires it. 
Such a man has a fine consciousness, a per- 
vasive sense of strength and freedom, and a 
still deeper sense of moral harmony and 
Tightness. 

" My strength is as the strength of ten, 
Because my heart is pure." 

It is also of great advantage to lead a regu- 



PURITY. 225 

lar life and one of incessant occupation. 
Have a plan for every hour ; work while 
you work and play while you play, leaving 
no time between for day-dreams and vain 
thought. One of the chief devils in this 
world is idleness. More sin of the sort we 
are considering comes in through this door 
than any other. A main defense of virtue 
is industry. It preoccupies the mind, engages 
the interest, and puts one in accord through- 
out with Him who works eternally. 

I would say, in conclusion, cherish a noble 
contempt for all acts that border on the base 
side of your nature. Live for the higher 
forms of life, — for self-respect, for honor, 
for conscious purity, for a marriage that shall 
be as pure on your side as on the side of the 
woman whom only you would take for your 
wife ; be as strenuous in your demands upon 
yourself as upon her ; offer her in yourself 
what you require in her. 

So live and act that you can at last say : 
Whatever other mistakes I have made and 
sins I have committed, I have at least re- 
spected myself. 



X. 

FAITH 



" Fecisti nos ad Te, et inquietum est cor nostrum, uonec 
requiescat in Te." — Augustine. 

" Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou hast the words 
of eternal life." — (Said to the Christ.) 

* i Blest is the man whose heart and hands are pure ! 
He hath no sickness that he shall not cure, 
No sorrow that he may not well endure : 
His feet are steadfast and his hope is sure. 

" Oh, hlest is he who ne'er hath sold his soul, 
Whose will is perfect, and whose word is whole ; 
Who hath not paid to common-sense the toll 
Of self -disgrace, nor owned the world's control ! 

" Through clouds and shadows of the darkest night, 
He will not lose a glimmering of the light ; 
Nor, though the sun of day be shrouded quite, 
Swerve from the narrow path to left or right." 

John Addington Symohdb. 

" If you travel through the world well, you may find 
cities without walls, without literature, without kings, 
moneyless and such as desire no coin ; which know not 
what theatres or public halls of bodily exercise mean ; 
but never was there, nor ever shall there be, any one city 
seen without temple, church, or chapel. Nay, methinks 
a man should sooner find a city built in the air, without 
any plot of ground whereon it is seated, than that any 
commonwealth altogether void of religion should either 
be first established or afterward preserved and main- 
tained in that estate. This is that containeth and hold- 
eth together all human society ; this is the foundation, 
gtay, and prop of all." — Plutabch. 



FAITH. 

Carlyle, in that great address of his to 
the students of Edinburgh, says : " No na- 
tion that did not contemplate this wonderful 
universe with an awe-stricken and reveren- 
tial feeling that there was a great unknown, 
omnipotent, and all-wise, and all-virtuous 
Being, superintending all men in it, and all 
interests in it, — no nation ever came to very 
much, nor did any man either, who forgot 
that. If a man did forget that, he forgot 
the most important part of his mission in 
this world." 

I do not propose in this chapter to do 
more than follow out the thought of this 
vigorous utterance. 

It will indeed never do to forget " the all- 
wise, all- virtuous Being v who superintends 
human society, nor the fact that we have 
our origin and therefore our destiny in Him. 
Whatever be thought of evolution, men must 



230 FAITH. 

never doubt that they are made in the image 
of God. Hence the Bible opens with the 
creation of the world and of man — the 
starting-point of philosophy and religion, as 
well as of the physical world. Whether 
those first pages be regarded as typical, or 
figurative, or traditional, or mythical, they 
are the profoundest and truest words that 
we know. No great thinker treats them 
slightly ; no man can afford to forget their 
personal lesson. They gave the greatest 
English poet after Shakespeare his theme. 
Milton was no Puritan fanatic turning the 
crude and harsh theology of his day into 
majestic verse, but a seer whose open eyes 
rested habitually upon the summits of truth. 
Setting himself to the deliberate task of 
composing a masterpiece of poetry, he se- 
lected, as the greatest possible theme, the 
creation of man. Dante wrote of destiny, 
Milton of origin and so comprehended both. 
On the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel Mi- 
chael Angelo strove to tell how man became 
a living soul. The created Adam lies upon 
a sloping bank in the midst of a dull and 
desert solitude — nerveless, lax, an animal 
only, waiting for his completion into man. 
Above him in the air is the majestic figure of 






FAITH. 231 

the Deity whose outstretched hand touches 
with one finger the upreaching hand of 
Adam, and through the touch, the electric 
spark of spiritual life is conveyed, and Adam 
becomes a living soul. 

The first minds of the world do not repeat 
this history in poetry and painting without 
reason. It is the world's strongest assertion 
of the essential oneness of man with God, — 
asserted by genius because genius asserts the 
highest truths. Young men always revere 
genius ; each wears something of the glory 
of the other. Hence they should keep in 
mind that it never speaks with such una- 
nimity and emphasis as when it declares the 
divine origin of man. I find in a recent 
novel a clear and strong statement of the 
incompleteness of man apart from God. A 
professor of mathematics, overshadowed by 
death, is speaking to a pupil of great force 
and talent, who is disposed to push his way 
in the world without any recognition of God. 
The dying mathematician says: "No man 
is competent to calculate accurately until 
he has as perfect a conception of two-ness 
as he has of one-ness. You cannot estimate 
things correctly unless you take into your 
calculation another as well as yourself. You 



232 FAITH. 

are but one integer. Handling, however 
perfectly, one factor, your calculations are 
extremely limited. The other factor is God. 
Stay, I err, you are not a unit ! You are, I 
am, but zero ! that is, apart from God. Ad- 
mitting him, all other factors follow, not 
otherwise. Remember what I tell you, this 
is the sum of all ; separate quality from 
quantity, and your result is wrong ; omit 
eternity in your estimate as to area, and your 
conclusion is wrong; fasten your attention 
exclusively upon yourself and leave out God, 
and your equation is wrong, false, and utterly 
wrong." 

I do not think it too much to expect that 
young men will apprehend these reasons for 
a positive recognition of God. If the rea- 
sons are profound, they are also self-assert- 
ing. When presented, you say, — I know 
them already. 

" So nigh is gTandeur to our dust, 
So near is God to man, 
When duty whispers low, Thou must, 
The youth replies, I can.'''' 

This inner voice, declaring for God and 
duty, is often hushed, often unheeded, and 
so at last comes to be seldom heard, — a sad 
and strange history. I am aware that young 



FAITH. 

men have a habit of treating matters of faith 
in a slighting way, as not quite lying in the 
line of manliness. I will not say that you 
have not some reason for thinking so. As 
sometimes presented, they are anything but 
attractive to a clear-headed, brave man, — 
now as a mere matter of future safety, bare 
of a single noble feature ; now as a thin and 
pretty sentiment, void of all robust thought 
and practical duty ; now a mesh of doctrinal 
subtilties, or a tissue of traditions and dog- 
mas. But these phases of the subject are 
rapidly passing away. Whether past or not, 
we have only to do with the eternal truth 
they obscure. I invite you into the company 
of the greatest and best, who never reject or 
slight this fact called Christianity ; or if any 
do so, it is because of the pressure of some 
special adverse influence, as in the case of 
men overweighted with the scientific habit, 
"dazzled," as Plato said, "by a too near 
look at things ; " or it is due to an ill-bal- 
anced nature, cold on the emotional and 
blind on the imaginative side. It is always 
safe to trust the poets ; not much moral 
truth has got into the world except through 
them, and never have they put the indorse- 
ment of their inspiration upon any great 



234 FAIT II. 

error. They stand on the highest summits 
of life, and therefore see farthest ; they live 
closest to nature, and therefore understand 
her most thoroughly ; they are the fullest 
endowed with gifts, and therefore best un- 
derstand man and his needs. They speak 
with one voice in this matter. Lucretius in 
antiquity, — a naturalist rather than a poet, 
— and Shelley in modern times, a man pre- 
ternaturally sensitive to falseness and so re- 
pelled by the hypocrisy of his age, though 
Shelley could be quoted against himself ; — 
these are almost the only unbelievers among 
the poets. Put by the side of Lucretius, 
Wordsworth, who seems to have written no 
line except in that Presence, — 

" Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
And the round ocean and the living air 
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man ; " 

or by the side of Shelley, the equally fine 
and more robust Tennyson, who prefaces 
the greatest of his poems with prayer to 
the 

" Strong Son of God, immortal Love." 

It is a fact of immense significance that the 
poets thus bow with reverence before the 
Christian faith; for the poet is a seer; it 



FAITH. 235 

is his gift and function to declare the reality 
of things. Now Christianity, in its broad- 
est definition, is simply the reality of things. 
It is a setting forth of the true order of hu- 
manity. When a man grasps this secret, he 
must accept Christianity. He does violence 
to himself, if he refuses. 

I have all along in these pages had in 
mind those who have begun to think. I 
ask you to think here — not alone, nor yet 
with any sect — but with the great souls. 
If they are mistaken, if they see amiss, the 
whole world is blind. 

But if, intellectually, we are forced to 
accept the Christian idea, we must carry it 
into the conscience, where we encounter 
that word which Carlyle declares to be the 
mightiest of all words — ought, and by 
which convictions are transmuted into du- 
ties. You cannot build a wall about your 
logical and critical faculties and say, " Here 
will I entertain my faith." There can be 
no wall, nor line even, between the intellect 
and the moral nature. When universal 
truths like those of Christianity come to 
man they spread throughout his whole be- 
ing. Intellectual conviction means moral 
assent. The conviction sweeps like a wind 



236 FAITH. 

through every recess of his nature, and sets to 
vibrating those chords that sound the ought 
of duty. And so we are borne on to the 
higher sentiments of love and adoration and 
spiritual sympathy. If there is a God, I 
must love Him. I must pour out my soul 
upon Him. I must worship at his feet. I 
must be at one with Him. The logic of our 
nature, with tender but relentless force, 
drives us to this final issue, — 

" When duty whispers low, Thou must, 
The youth replies, I can." 

1. My first practical suggestion in regard 
to faith is that you treat it earnestly and 
never otherwise. If you have wit to scatter 
broadly, withhold it from this theme. No 
sound nature ever makes a mock of it. 
Your true-hearted, fine-grained man puts 
off his shoes at the door of a mosque as 
devoutly as any Moslem; he treads the 
aisles of a cathedral as softly as any Ro- 
manist ; he despises no incense ; he sneers 
at no idol. He may deny, but he will not 
jest. The sneer is crucial ; bring one who 
indulges in it to the test, and you will find 
him crude in thought and coarse in feeling. 
I know how common it is and how much 
there is to provoke it in the humanly-weak 



FAITH. 237 

forms of worship and eccentricities of belief ; 
still, the most deluded Seventh-day Baptist, 
or Sandermanian literalist, ranks higher 
than one who scoffs at them. I like to hear 
one pronounce the name of God with a sub- 
dued awe, and to see the cast of reverent 
thought overspread the features when eternal 
things are named. I like to see a delicate 
and quiet handling of sacred truths, — as you 
speak the name of your mother in heaven. 
I might say that this is the way a gentleman 
bears himself towards religion, but I would 
rather have you feel that it is the treatment 
due to the majesty of the subject. 

2. If you happen to be skeptical, do not 
formulate your doubts, nor regard them 
as convictions. Doubt is almost a natu- 
ral phase of life ; but as certainly as it is 
natural is it also temporary, unless it is 
unwisely wrought into conduct. The chief 
danger is lest one, blinded and confused by 
the " excess of light " with which life dawns, 
may come to think that one is not amena- 
ble to the laws of morality ; that, having 
no chart or compass, he may drift with the 
tides. This is not good moral seamanship. 
When storms have swept away compass and 
quadrant and chart, the sailor still steers 



238 FAITH. 

the ship and watches for some opening in 
the clouds that may reveal a guiding star ; 
he scans the waters for sight of some fellow 
voyager, and at night listens for the possible 
roar of breakers, and so, by redoubling his 
seamanship at all points, finds at length his 
course. When one finds himself in this 
skeptical mood, he should govern himself 
in the strictest manner, using whatever of 
truth and moral sense he has left with ut- 
most fidelity, doing the one thing that he 
still knows to be right. One may doubt, 
and the whole apparatus of his moral nature 
remain sound ; if one works that aright, one 
cannot long remain astray. There is won- 
derful light-generating power in good con- 
duct. " I am skeptical, therefore I have 
nothing to do with Bible or church or sermon ; 
I am skeptical, therefore I am not bound to 
the moral courses taught by religion ; I am 
skeptical, therefore, having no faith or law, 
I will be a law unto myself ; " — this is 
both poor thinking and bad morality. Skep- 
ticism by its nature as simply doubt, as not 
even negation, requires that it should not be 
made a rule or reason for conduct. It may 
possibly be rational to act from a negation, 
but not from a doubt. It is worse than 



FAITH. 239 

building upon the sand ; it is building on 
chaos. 

It is well to remember, as Plutarch tells us, 
that nothing so universally engages the at- 
tention of men as religion ? hence, nothing 
will bear so long study. Its final verdicts 
are reached only through experience. A 
young man pronounced in unbelief is pre- 
mature : he has decided that Jupiter has no 
moons without waiting to look through a 
telescope. The experience of life almost 
always works towards the confirmation of 
faith. It is the total significance of life 
that it reveals God ; life only can do this ; 
— neither thought, nor demonstration, nor 
miracle, but life only, weaving its threads of 
daily toil and trial and joy into a pattern on 
which at last is inscribed the Eternal Name. 
It is a fact of great significance that Emer- 
son, who in early years looked askance at 
this name, suffered himself in old age to be 
called a Christian theist. I ask young men 
to wait and hear what life has to say before 
they formulate their doubts. The years 
have a message for you that you must not 
fail to hear. 

3. Be intelligent in regard to Chris- 
tianity. 



240 FAITH. 

An American statesman, though an un- 
believer, daily read the Bible on the ground 
that every citizen should be familiar with 
the religion of his country. Had he gone a 
step farther and read it because it contained 
the religion of humanity, he would have read 
from a higher consideration, and perhaps to 
better purpose. Christianity marches at the 
head of the army of progress. It is found 
beside the most refined life, the freest gov- 
ernment, the profound est philosophy, the 
noblest poetry, the purest humanity. We 
are all of us bound to have a olear concep- 
tion of this fact which thus possesses and 
dominates human society. It is not too much 
to expect of young men that they shall know 
its external history, and from that go on 
and raise the questions, What is the secret 
of the power of Christianity ? Why does it 
lay strongest hold of the best races ? Why 
does it pave the way to freedom and social 
elevation? Why does it make a man bet- 
ter ? Why does it have the peculiar effect 
of ennobling and dignifying character? 
Why does it make the path of daily duty an 
easy one to tread ? What is it that makes 
the epithet Christian mean the best of its 
kind, whether applied to a civilization, to a 



FAITH. 241 

community, to individual conduct, or to an 
inward temper ? Not long ago a ship was 
wrecked upon the reefs of an island in the 
Pacific. The sailors, escaping to land, 
feared lest they might fall into the hands of 
savages. One climbed a bluff to reconnoi- 
tre ; — turning to his mates, he shouted, 
" Come on, here 's a church ; " — a simple 
story, but involving the profound question : 
Why was it safer for shipwrecked men to 
go where a church upreared its cross than 
where there was none ? 

4. I go a step farther when, for the same 
reasons, I urge upon you a study of the 
character of Jesus Christ. 

It is almost a modern thing, this analysis 
and measurement of that divine Person. In 
former days, when religious thought took 
chiefly theological forms, the Christ was but 
a factor of a system ; but since we have 
begun to think from more practical stand- 
points, the question has arisen, What kind 
of a man was Christ ? Dr. Bushnell, in the 
famous tenth chapter of " Nature and the 
Supernatural," first made the question a gen- 
eral one in this country. In England, it 
had found place in the writings of Cole- 
ridge, Dr. Arnold, Maurice, Robertson, and 



24 "2 FAITH. 

others of their school of thought. It be- 
came popular through " Ecce Homo/' and is 
to-day the favorite theme of religious study, 
as shown in the close and analytic Lives of 
Christ which follow one another in rapid 
succession from the press. Led by such 
teaching, you find that you have before you 
a character more curiously interesting, more 
wonderful than any other that history can 
show. You find that you cannot classify 
him, — elusive and passing out of sight on 
some sides of his character, yet most near 
and tangible on other sides ; a Jew, yet not 
Jewish ; of the first century, yet equally of 
all centuries ; an idealist but not transcend- 
ing possibility ; a reformer, but not a de- 
stroyer; making for the first time what is 
highest in character the most effective in 
action, — a true full member of the common 
humanity but transcending it till he is one 
with God ; a being at the same time so weak 
that he can die, and so strong that he is su- 
perior to death, a person at once so near and 
human that we call him our brother, and so 
high and mysterious that we bow at his feet 
as Lord and Master. 

Xow, no thoughtful person can get beyond 
the first look at this Jesus, without ever 



FAITH. 243 

after holding him in highest veneration. 
Nor can one study this character closerv 
without perceiving that it contains the true 
order of humanity, and " points the way we 
are going " to the end of time. Nor can one 
long contemplate the Christ without feeling 
his personality pressing upon him with trans- 
forming power. 

5. Allow full play to the sense of account- 
ability. 

When Daniel Webster was Secretary of 
State, he was invited to dine at the Astor 
House with about twenty gentleman. He 
seemed weary with his journey, and, speak- 
ing but little, sank into a sort of reverie out 
of keeping with the occasion. All other at- 
tempts at conversation failing, a gentleman 
put to him this strange question : " Mr. 
Webster, will you tell me what was the most 
important thought that ever occupied your 
mind ? " Mr. Webster slowly passed his 
hand over his forehead, and in a low tone 
said to one near him, " Is there any one 
here who does not know me ? " " No ; all 
are your friends." " The most important 
thought that ever occupied my mind," said 
Mr. Webster, " was that of my individual 
responsibility to God," — upon which he 



1>44 FAITH. 

spoke to them for twenty minutes, when he 
rose from the table and retired to his room. 

It is the most important thought, because 
it pertains to our highest relation. It ush- 
ers in the sum of all duties, — fidelity. It 
is the only thought that can move our whole 
nature and move it aright. Pleasure and 
ambition and self-respect touch us on this 
side and on that, but they do not invest us 
with an all-embracing purpose, as does this 
sense of " individual responsibility to God." 
There are noble motives and passions that 
bear us to noble conclusions in conduct and 
character, but only this lifts us to the height 
of our being. " God made us for Himself," 
says Augustine, " and we have no rest till 
we find rest in Him." 

6. Make for yourself definite religious du- 
ties and relations. 

I think you all understand very well that 
the common talk about respecting religion is 
of very little moment apart from conduct. 
Whatever other mistake you make in re- 
spect to religion, don't patronize it. This is 
a matter-of-fact world, and religion is the 
most matter-of-fact thing in it. The hard 
common sense of the subject is that a practi- 
cal relation to faith is the only real and vita] 



FAITH. 245 

relation to it. I am at the farthest from 
hinting under what name you should wor- 
ship ; I only say that reason requires that 
you kneel at some altar, and that you confess 
in some real way your belief " in the com- 
munion of saints." To get the good of 
other relations, you fulfill them. To learn 
good manners, you mingle in society. To 
secure a fair name, you tell the truth and 
maintain your honor. If you belong to a 
club, or board of directors, you meet its 
appointments. Do not regard the external 
forms of faith with less intelligent logic. 

I have no fear that you will think I 
summon you to other than the most manly 
view of life when I urge the religious view 
of it. 

We have linked our themes at many 
points with the testimony of the great ; it is 
the glory of your youth that you feel and 
respond to their inspiration. They speak as 
emphatically here as elsewhere. 

When Sir Walter Scott was approaching 
his end, he said to Lockhart, " I may have 
but a minute to speak to you. My dear, be a 
good man, — be virtuous, — be religious, — ■ 
be a good man. Nothing else will give you 
any comfort when you come to lie here ; " 



246 FAITH. 

— a pensive testimony, but how tender and 
honest ! 

All critical thought agrees that in " Ham- 
let " we have not only the profoundest but 
the most personal thought of Shakespeare. 
It is hard to resist the feeling that in the fol- 
lowing lines he struck deeper than the artist, 
and revealed a personal conviction and ex- 
perience. At least, he knew what a man 
will do who has sounded life, and caught 
sight of his work. 

" And so, without more circumstance at all, 
I hold it fit that we shake hands, and part ; 
You, as your business and desire shall point you, — 
For every man has business and desire, 
Such as it is, — and for mine own poor part, 
Look you, I HI go pray" 



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